


Kings Upon The Main

by avoidingavoidance



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Mentions of Illicit Substances, Travel, Wanderlust, mentions of criminal activity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-03-16 07:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 58,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3480122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avoidingavoidance/pseuds/avoidingavoidance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are three kinds of people in the world: ordinary, extraordinary, and statistically improbable. Marco Bodt is one of the unlucky average joes, doomed to a long life of normalcy and predictability. At least, until a wild thing hurricanes into his life, someone who's easily a member of the third category in every way.</p><p>Marco's life won't ever be the same, certainly not after Eren leaves it standing on its head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Cautious Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hachidorikun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hachidorikun/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://avoidingavoidance.tumblr.com)
> 
> SO yes here is a new thing that no one asked for from me ouo;; this was meant to be one of my absurdly long oneshots but then it got out of hand and now it's looking like ~50k i am so sorry BUT please let me know what you think of it and stuff, feedback feeds ♥

Marco Bodt has never found himself to be particularly unhappy with his life. That isn’t to say that he’s _happy,_ exactly, but at least he isn’t sad. Mostly. 

He doesn’t have any complaints. How could he? His IT job pays very well, and really the only way he’d ever lose it would be if machines gained sentience and enslaved the human race. Even then, it’s debatable. Marco’s historically been good at arguing his way out of paper bags.

Still, his story is not particularly compelling. He was born in Seattle, raised in Seattle, went to high school and college in Seattle, and got his job right out of college. In Seattle. He went to Maine once for some obscure family reunion with the cousins at the far edges of his family tree, but all he remembers is being too young to tolerate fly-fishing and too old to tolerate playing in the sprinklers.

Marco Bodt is twenty-six years old. He has a handful of work friends and a job steady enough to support a family if he could ever find the right man, and the corkboard of his accomplishments is littered with school transcripts, penmanship awards, and bonuses for immaculate attendance, but even spread thin these scraps of paper can’t cover for the fact that Marco lives a boring life.

He’s _comfortable,_ though. He’s cozy, and more stable than most other human beings he’s ever met. What more could he ask for?

To drive the point home, Marco’s idea of doing something new and fun to shake things up usually involves making a spontaneous decision about where to eat lunch on any given day. It’s a sunny Wednesday in early July when the urge takes him again, and other than the most infinitesimal spark of wanderlust, so far this day is completely and inescapably _normal._ Same as any other.

It only takes a moment.

\--

There’s a cute little park downtown Marco had seen about a week ago. Well, he hadn’t _seen_ it, per se. He’d seen an article about it in the local newspaper one morning, specifically highlighting a hot dog cart that does business there every Wednesday. So, feeling particularly adventurous, Marco decides that today is the day. 

He’s going on a quest to find that hot dog cart.

On his way to the elevators, he waves to the front desk girl for his floor, his plain white button-up rolled up to his elbows, and she flashes him her usual put-upon grin with too many teeth and not enough actual _smile._ He sends her a sympathetic look, knowing she must be having quite the day if she’s already wearing that look at noon.

Getting to the park takes a good chunk of his break, but the gorgeous blue sky, scattered puffy, blindingly-white clouds, and the sweet warmth of the zenith summer sun somehow relieve him of the stress beating from his watch and into his bloodstream. It’s a rare feeling, this relaxation, so he feels only the slightest guilt basking in it. 

As grim as it sounds, he’s used to the massive timekeeper occupying the backburners of his mind, constantly looming like the metaphorical doomsday clock and ticking away the dusty, metered seconds of his comfortable life.

The little park is positively _alive,_ with a million people and all their dogs moving through on their ways here or there or anywhere, and with all the motion around him, Marco somehow feels a little lost. Alone again in a tempestuous sea of human life. His hands in his pockets, fingers playing at the smooth edges of his phone on one side, his wallet on the other, he meanders through joggers and young people and old people and dogs of all shape and size, until he finally finds the brat stand somewhere through his hazy daydreams. The balmy sunlight must be making him sleepy.

He buys a regular hot dog with regular old relish and nothing else, much to the clear dismay of the hip young hot dog man, and decides to sit on a nearby bench to eat and people-watch. It might be enough excitement to get him through the week, making up stories to match all these curious threadlike paths trailing along the walkway before him.

Pretty soon, though, Marco’s mind wanders. People-watching only gets so interesting. He works his way through his hot dog, ever-aware of his remaining time to enjoy this pickled luxury, and less aware of his surroundings than is strictly advisable. So, of course, when he reaches for his food again after yet another brief daydream break and finds nothing, it’s not exactly surprising.

The poofy grey puppy sitting on the bench beside him chews rapidly, shame already obvious across its face. Not like that stops it from finishing off his food for him.

Sighing softly, Marco gives the puppy a crooked smile and ruffles its floppy ears, which is clearly appreciated. Once the evidence of its crime has been disposed of, it stumbles closer to him and pants loudly, wagging its fluffy little tail so hard it almost falls off the bench.

“ _Connie!_ Oh my god,” comes a loud, exasperated voice. Marco looks up at an extremely sheepish young woman, her hair tied up in a loose, floppy ponytail that bobs and weaves as she scampers over, theoretically to retrieve the puppy. “Sir, oh god, I’m _so_ sorry, he hasn’t finished obedience school yet and he figured out a way to slip his collar, _Connie, Jesus,_ ” she babbles, somehow all in one breath.

With a wide smile, Marco grins up at her and scratches Connie’s ears. “No worries, I was done, I think.”

“He _ate your food?_ Sir, I am _so so so sorry—_ ”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Marco laughs, helpfully holding Connie still while the girl huffs and fastens his collar around his scrawny neck again. “Maybe his collar’s too big?”

“Yeah,” she sighs, flopping onto the bench beside the enthused puppy. “I think so too... I should poke a hole in it, d’you think? Oh, I’m Sasha, by the way.” Sasha holds out her hand with a winning smile, and Marco gladly shakes, stuffing the crumpled foil from his lunch into his pocket.

“Marco. Pleased to meet you. Your friend, too.”

“ _Ugh,_ he’s so cute, but he’s such a little jerk sometimes!” Sasha flips her bangs off her face and laughs, letting a beat pass before she blurts, “Can I buy you another brat?”

“No, really,” Marco replies, waving the puppy’s transgression aside. He bends closer to Connie and gives his ears a solid, two-handed ruffle. “He makes up for it with that face.”

“Alright, if you’re sure... sorry again, Marco.” Sasha stands then, tugging on Connie’s leash. “Thanks for being so chill, this scary old dude freaked out on him last week for peeing on his lawn... see ya!”

Marco waves as Sasha and Connie bounce away, happy to have made a new acquaintance. Adventures are always more exciting if you make friends along the way, he reasons.

He sighs then and checks his watch, already thinking about his walk back to work to face the rest of his adventure-less day. Before he can stand and move away, though, the bench rattles impressively with the force of the apparent meteor that just crash-landed onto it in the form of a dark-skinned, shaggy-looking young man now taking up most of the seat. Marco startles and stares at him, eyes wide, but the dude just groans loudly and runs a hand through his dark, tangled hair.

“ _Shit,_ I knew I was moving too slow,” the guy moans, staring wistfully after Sasha. “I haven’t seen a puppy in _months._ Was hoping I could play with him.” He turns his intense gaze on Marco then, the vivid sort of green that makes promises before impressions, and continues, “Was he soft? Did he lick your hand? Tell me everything, man, I gotta know.”

Marco stares more. Today seems to be a day of overly friendly, rather _furry_ strangers spontaneously exploding into his life. He didn’t even wear his adventuring tie.

“Dude?”

“O-oh, sorry,” Marco mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, he was really soft. Like, uh. Well, like puppies.” The guy groans again and tilts his head back. “He didn’t really lick my hand, though. Just stole my lunch.”

“That’s _so_ fucking cute,” the brunette sighs, lacing his fingers casually on top of his head. He takes up a lot of room, Marco notices, easily filling the rest of the bench and the surrounding area with his widely-spread legs, his mud-caked boots, his strong, tattoo-covered arms. 

“Yeah,” Marco agrees, trying not to gawk. “He, um. He looked really guilty about it, too, even while he was eating it.”

The guy grins, huge and dazzling like a shimmering suncatcher, and Marco kind of has to swallow the breathless lump it puts in his throat. The tattooed puppy enthusiast is so open, so earthy, so _present_ that it almost makes Marco feel small, a dust mote seated primly on his end of the bench. He tries not to let his gaze follow the colorful full sleeves the guy has going, soft lines flowing from under his loose tank top and trailing all down his wiry arms and onto his rough hands, but that’s the thing about tattoos. They attract the eye.

“What’s his name?”

Marco shakes his head clear and blinks his eyes back to the guy’s face. “The girl called him Connie.”

“ _Connie?”_ He barks a laugh, raising his thick eyebrows. He has a thin, pale scar running across his forehead, barely visible even under leaf-spotted afternoon sunlight. “That’s a weird name for a dog. That’s like, I dunno, a _banker_ name or something, you know?”

Nodding vaguely, Marco blinks down at the chipped paint of the seat between them. “Yeah, I guess so.” 

“My name’s Eren,” the guy says, leaning far forward with a crooked smile. He doesn’t extend his hand, though. Doesn’t seem like the germaphobe type, given his rather scruffy aesthetic, but Marco isn’t one to judge. 

“Oh, I’m Marco,” he replies, the second time already today. He remembers something then, one of the first things Eren had said, and furrows his brow before he squints up at him. “You said you haven’t seen a puppy in months?”

“Oh, oh, yeah,” Eren hums, slinging his arm across the back of the bench. His restless fingers immediately begin tapping out a rapid beat against the wood. “Not too many puppies in the Oman, see.”

Eyebrows shooting up, Marco tilts his head in question. “Oman? Like, south-of-Saudi-Arabia Oman?”

Eren grins and nods, lazily pointing at Marco as some odd form of confirmation. “Good geography. Yeah, I was there for a few months, just got back to Seattle about an hour ago. Came here for the beastly hot dogs.”

The gravity of that casual statement kind of makes Marco’s head hurt. “You... just got back from the Middle East,” he says carefully, “And the first thing you do is hit up Maria’s Dogs ‘N Brats?”

“Dude,” Eren blurts, almost scarily serious as he leans forward again, “You have _no idea_ how much I missed eating pigs. I am losing my shit, okay, I’m gonna eat nothing but bacon and hot dogs for a month. Pig and pig byproducts only.”

Marco can’t help it. He laughs. Pretty hard, actually, because Eren’s so serious, so _earnest_ about his need for the flesh of pigs that it’s almost absurd. Eren doesn’t seem to mind Marco’s mirth, though, based on the warm grin on his face and the easy way he pushes his bangs back off his face as Marco rides out the giggles. 

Unfortunately, Marco can never forget the looming threat of time for long, and having to say goodbye to this character of a man kind of puts a damper on Marco’s upbeat mood. He clears his throat anyway and makes a show of checking his watch. “Crap, I really have to get back to work...”

“Busy man, huh,” Eren hums, his free hand now tapping on his thigh in time to the beat his fist keeps on the back of the bench.

“Something like that.” Marco bites his lip as he stands, sliding his hands into his pockets in a loose approximation of his earlier relaxation. “You’re really interesting, Eren. I’m glad I ran into you.”

Something like a blush might run across Eren’s face, but it’s gone with a genuine smile before Marco can be too sure. “Good to meet you too, man. You’re a great puppy magnet.”

Marco returns his smile, stalling for just a moment longer before he says, “Well. See you around.”

He catches Eren’s lazy wave as he turns away and starts heading back toward his office, and as generic as they sound, he really means his parting words. He hopes to see Eren again, maybe with more time to hear stories from Oman, or explanations for his brilliantly-colored tattoos, or even just to see that radiant suncatcher grin again.

Once he’s firmly seated at his desk, just in time for the end of his lunch hour, Marco wonders belatedly if maybe he should’ve taken a risk and just given the dude his phone number. If anything, it’d be _interesting._

Maybe next time.

\--

‘Courageous’ is not honestly a word that describes Marco. He has more good qualities than most people, but he isn’t known for the risks he takes. Friendly, reliable, always full of encouraging words for everyone but himself, yes, but brave? Impulsive? Not so much.

As July waxes and then slowly wanes, every warm day indistinguishable from the last, the alluring wilderness lighting Eren’s gaze fades until it’s nothing more than a hazy dream, and an infrequent one at that. Marco’s almost completely succeeded in discouraging himself from hoping that fate might lead their paths to cross again. There’s a twinge of regret there, the hovering shadow of a missed opportunity, but he mostly manages to talk himself down from that, too. This too shall pass, and so on.

Eren’s fables are nothing but fodder for wild fantasies for Marco. An excuse to lose himself in a vicarious adventure across distant lands, and probably the closest he’ll ever get to those places. 

No, adventure for the _real_ Marco is deciding to test whether he likes raw fish or not, or watching space documentaries on Netflix and pondering the furthest reaches of the known universe. Eren’s adventures span the vast earth beneath his own two feet, while Marco’s adventures reach ever deeper into the glimmering, untouchable stars. 

He’s understandably morose about his brain’s slow, month-long debriefing on the whole Eren thing. No need to get his hopes up, blah blah, but sometimes he still catches himself idly wondering _why_ there aren’t many dogs in Oman. 

Just before work begins on the last Monday in July, Marco runs into the front desk girl at the coffee machine, and he has no problem finding a friendly smile for her. 

“Hi, Petra.”

“Mornin’, Marco,” she says, the soft lilt of her Southern accent (Dallas, or so he’s told) smoothing out any pre-coffee roughness left to her voice. “How was your weekend?”

“Oh, pretty good,” he hums, stirring an absurd amount of sugar into his mug. She makes her usual face, and he replies by sticking his tongue out at her, same as always. “I watched, uh, _Journey to the Edge of the Universe,_ so.”

“Now, hold on,” she chirps, turning to quirk a teasing eyebrow. “Is that one of your documentaries, or some weird _sci-fi_ thing?”

Laughing off her ribbing, Marco replies, “The former, thank you very much. What about you, anything fun?”

Petra shrugs, tucking her bright red hair behind her ear. “Not really. Went out with some college friends who’re in town, slept _that_ off all yesterday, you know.”

Marco doesn’t, but he nods anyway. She smiles and pats his arm, and they go their separate ways, same as always.

Normal, normal, normal. Every day blends together here, and every evening bleeds through with lonely dinners and the strange science of old stars, and this is where Marco is _comfortable._ This is his element. All he needs is a boyfriend, and then he’ll be totally happy. 

He always tells himself this whenever he starts feeling discouraged, whenever his apartment rings a little too quiet. Lately, however, the thought carries less comfort with it than usual, his logic standing on shaky legs exhausted from years of holding itself up unsupported. 

Maybe he’ll ask out that cute guy in accounting, the one that flirts with him on the elevator and always pretends his printer is broken when really it’s just unplugged.

Next time, he tells himself over a bowl of lukewarm Chef Boyardee. Next time he sees that printer.

Next time.

\--

Marco doesn’t sleep well at _all_ on Tuesday, so Wednesday morning finds him still digging the heels of his hands into his eyes on the elevator ride up to his third-floor workspace, trying to press alertness into his brain. It’s cloudy today, too, which doesn’t help his gloom. He whips out the big mug for his morning coffee stop, but Petra’s not in the break room to tease him for it like usual. 

By lunchtime, Marco realizes dimly that he hasn’t done jack-diddly all morning. No tech support tickets, which is strange but out of his control. He hasn’t filled out any of his reports either, though. Nor has he answered his phone. He’s just been staring at his pad of colorful post-its, filling up the bright squares with tiny little doodles and dark squiggles until there’s no more room before pulling the note off, crumpling it up, and starting again. For hours.

He takes his lunch hour at noon, although he doesn’t particularly feel he deserves it, and realizes on the elevator down that he has no idea what he wants to eat. If he’s honest, nothing. Sleeplessness sours his stomach, and food usually only makes it worse. 

However, sleeplessness also makes him just a little more impulsive, and that’s how he finds his feet following a dimly-remembered thread to the park and the Wednesday hot dog cart. Today’s been an unusual sort of day all around. Between his insomnia blues, Petra’s absence, and the bizarre lack of tech complaints, Marco wonders quietly if today’s unusual _enough._

He sucks on his lip as he walks, letting his mind wander further than usual, until he passes under the cool shade of the park’s many trees and realizes that the faint music he’s hearing now isn’t coming from the cold documentary suns flickering through his exhausted brain. At least, he doesn’t think so. He furrows his brow and follows the path toward the sound, and also toward the hot dogs, until the music grows louder, clearer, enough for Marco to tell that it’s quite pretty.

So is the voice accompanying the sweet, quick rhythm of the ukulele.

Hands resting idle in his pockets, his teeth digging into his lip, Marco finds himself captivated through the sluggish stream of pedestrians by the way Eren taps his foot to keep the time, singing freely and smiling around his clever lyrics, his eyes comfortably closed like this is the most natural thing in the world to him. 

Perhaps it’s the fatigue, or the spaced-out fuzz stuffing his skull to floating, but the longer Marco watches Eren perform, the less he feels the watchful eyes of his internal clock. Instead, he feels the lively pace of Eren’s rough fingers moving over steel strings. He indulges in the sound of Eren’s smooth voice inviting his heart to beat a little faster for a while. He breaks out of the time-rationed sort of calm that he’s been drifting through for years, particularly over the last month. 

The fleeting thought that this blissfully empty hourglass is born of Eren’s wild heart and sent to restart Marco’s own would be absurd if the whole thing didn’t feel so _right._ And indeed, the strangeness of the day so far melts away, and it takes with it all of humid July’s remorse and discouragement as if by some quiet magic whispering gentle between his ears. 

Eren’s song dances to a swift, confident end, earning him several jingling tips dropped into the boxy case lying open before him, and he pauses to run his hand through his messy hair and grin his thanks to the few people who had broken free of the listless walking path to listen. Marco hasn’t moved an inch since he got here, but that doesn’t matter. Eren still scans the slow-moving crowd, and he still catches Marco’s gaze flickering between joggers and business suits.

A long month has passed since their too-brief encounter in this same spot. That expanse of time clearly means nothing to Eren. His grin widens, his shimmering eyes wrinkling at the corners as he raises a friendly hand to Marco. An honest acknowledgment, an ‘I-remember-you.’

As Marco worms his way across the wide path, a peculiar warmth curling between his ribs and easing the sore exhaustion from his chest, he wonders briefly if he has a similar effect on Eren. Or any effect at all, really.

“Hey, man,” Eren says easily once Marco’s standing beside him, his tone familiar like no time has passed at all. Like they’d just spoken yesterday. “You look like crap, you okay?”

Marco snorts and rubs the back of his neck, conceding with a lopsided shrug. “Nice to see you too. Yeah, I just didn’t sleep so hot last night.”

Eren hums, nodding his sympathy, then kneels to set his ukulele in the case, right on top of his tips. “Bad dreams or insomnia?”

Blinking rapidly, Marco watches Eren close and latch the case, his eyes never leaving Marco’s. “U-um. Insomnia. Just couldn’t get to sleep.”

“Mm. You know what helps with that?” Eren stands up and rocks back onto his heels, his unzipped hoodie slipping off one brightly-inked shoulder as he peers up at Marco. Now that they’re standing in front of each other, Marco notices that he’s nearly a head taller than the brunette, and the angle of Eren’s upturned face lets even the overcast daylight catch like wildfire in his gaze. “Look up ‘Tibetan singing bowl’ and find some recordings or something. Listen to that when you’re trying to sleep, it’ll knock you out like Rocky.”

Marco quirks an eyebrow. “A singing bowl?”

“Nah, nah, it’s a, uh.” Eren’s brow furrows in concentration as he waves his hands in a wide U-shape, muttering words that Marco strongly doubts are English under his breath. “Like a bell, but upside-down so it stands up on its own. Saw them in a temple in Nara, in Japan. I really tried to meditate with them, but man, the monks about threw my ass out when I started snoring.”

As Eren grins sheepishly, running his hands through his shaggy bangs, Marco finds himself laughing again, and just like last time, his amusement comes as easily to him as breathing. Eren’s clearly full to bursting with endless interesting stories, but more curiously, the constant passage of time truly ceases to exist around him. A year could have passed and Marco imagines he’d be laughing just as hard, and his chest would be just as full of familiar, bubbling warmth.

“You out here for lunch, or what?” Eren asks smoothly, tilting his head back toward the hot dog cart.

“Nah, not really,” Marco hums, checking that the bench behind him is still unoccupied before dropping onto it. Shooting a crooked grin up at Eren, he continues, “I just kinda wandered over here by chance. Needed to get out of the office.”

“Oh yeah?” Eren grabs his case, which Marco is just noticing has more than a fair few dents and scratches around the metal edges, and moves it around to Marco’s other side. He flops down onto the bench beside him and props his feet up on it, somewhere between protecting the little thing and lounging on it.

“Yeah. My head just isn’t with it today, ‘cause of the no-sleep thing.” Marco crosses one leg over the other, turning casually toward his companion. “Can’t focus for beans.”

Eren hums, lacing his fingers behind his head as he slowly relaxes further, taking up more and more space with his lazy posture. “What do you do?”

“I’m an IT guy over at Amazon.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah... I basically, uh. Troubleshoot. Stuff like that.”

Grinning widely, Eren budges his knee against Marco’s and teases, “So you turn things off and turn them back on again?”

Marco just shrugs, smiling softly. “More often than not, yeah.”

“All day every day, huh.”

“Yup.”

Eren nods slowly, sucking on his lip and letting his eyes wander through the shifting leaves above them. “Do you like it?”

It’s a pretty common question. Marco’s used to answering the same way every time he’s asked, usually without having actually pondered the question. This time, however, even though his mouth opens to voice the usual, no sound comes out.

For the first time in four years, Marco realizes that he’s not actually sure if he likes his job or not.

He has no idea what to say other than ‘yes,’ but Eren’s blinking up at him for a response so Marco tries for it anyway, and the affirmative he manages is noticeably feeble, more than a little squeaky. Eren quirks an eyebrow at that, but he doesn’t pry. He just nods again, tapping his feet against his case and letting the subject drop. Some part of Marco is grateful, but a significantly larger part of him is wondering if this ugly realization will keep him up again tonight, even with a choir of singing bowls luring him to sleep.

“S-so, um,” Marco stammers, eager to change the subject either way. “You’ve been to Oman and Japan, right? Where else have you been?”

Eren breathes a dramatic sigh, running a hand through his disheveled hair again. “Ohhh man.”

“Big question?”

Marco had meant it to be slightly teasing, but Eren shrugs an honest affirmative, tossing Marco a crooked grin. “All over, yeah. Wherever the wind takes me. Or wherever I’m least likely to get shot.”

“How d’you bankroll that?” Marco leans his elbow on the bench’s backrest so he can prop his chin in his hand.

The way Eren laughs resonates in Marco’s chest, free and easy and sparking hot under his pounding heart. “Busking, man, ‘s why I’m out here today. It’d be easier if I had a trust fund, but shit, most things in life would be.”

“You make enough just from playing a ukulele on the sidewalk?”

Eren nods, slouching further so he can lean his head back against the bench and close his eyes contently. “It takes a while sometimes, but yeah. The biggest issue is _getting_ places. I avoid planes where I can. Inconvenient as hell, you know, and _way_ overpriced. Shipping boats are the best, but I’ve done some clever shit with fishing boats through the Canary Islands.”

As shameful as it is to admit, Marco doesn’t even know where the Canary Islands _are._ He doesn’t mention that, though. “So where are you headed next?”

Licking his lips, Eren hums thoughtfully before he replies, “Gearing up for New Zealand right now. Gonna harass some sheep, do some hiking, you know. If I’m lucky, I’ll make it from north to south and then do a little island-hopping. Getting back might be kind of a bitch, though...”

For once, Marco has no helpful advice. He’s so far out of his league here, sitting safely on this bench in the city he’s never even considered leaving, watching Eren suck at his teeth as he ponders hiking the length of an entire country like he’s pondering what to eat for dinner. The mere idea makes Marco’s stomach churn.

Even worse, the way Eren talks about it so easily almost makes it seem _simple._ Doable.

“Do you plan your routes ahead of time?”

“Meh.” Marco’s stomach twists tighter. “Only if I know in advance that I’ll be passing through areas of conflict.” His heart gives an overwhelmed little spasm. “But if I can’t avoid that, I usually just make it up as I go. See what I’m dealing with when I get there and all.” Marco thinks he might actually pass out.

Eren, though, is just as fluidly casual as always, steadily tapping his toes on his little ukulele case, fingers laced loosely behind his head. An average day for him.

“New Zealand isn’t exactly known for its violent political turmoil. I think I’ll let it surprise me.”

Once again, Marco finds himself struck silent, just peering down at Eren’s lax face while the seconds tick lazily by. There’s no good way for him to describe the cocktail of emotions he’s cycling through as they let the conversation settle. Terror, awe, infatuation, curiosity, and the dull thud of depression starting to boil up underneath all that other crap. A twinge of envy, too, and perhaps the tiny iceberg tip of a suspicion he’s been avoiding since his junior year of college.

The suspicion that he hasn’t really accomplished a goddamn thing in twenty-six years and counting.

“Hey, when’s your break over?” Eren asks lightly, blinking his wide eyes up at Marco, who can only shrug mutely. He shakes himself out of his stupor, though, and pulls his phone out of his pocket to check.

“Oh, yeah,” he hums, “Guess I should head back...” 

Eren quirks a supportive smile up at him, oozing up from his slouch to pop the noisy latches on his case. Marco watches him rifle around in the velvet-looking pocket in the lid, his fingers stirring up a chiming cacophony of change, before he finds whatever he’s looking for with a victorious sound. He pulls out a brown leather journal, well-worn pages crumpled and poking out at odd angles, then turns to face Marco with an almost nervous glance.

“Hey, so, uh. I’m actually leaving pretty soon for New Zealand.” Marco’s eyebrows shoot up, and Eren grimaces slightly. “I know, I kinda made it sound like I’d stick around here for a while, but between this month’s tips and some cash my buddy owes me, I’m set to go.”

“O-oh.”

“Yeah...” Eren fidgets with the threadbare elastic sort of holding the journal closed. “Dunno when I’ll be back, either... late October at best. But, uh, I want you to have this. Because I kinda dodged your question earlier. About where all I’ve been?” Biting his lip, Eren holds the book out in shaking hands, his anxious gaze flicking between Marco’s eyes and the battered, unlabeled cover. “It’s, um. One of my travel journals. Eastern Europe, I think, but it might also be China and Mongolia. Same kind of book, I just never labeled them. Too lazy.”

Staring wide-eyed at the journal hovering between them, Marco slowly uncrosses his legs, his shoulders tense. Eren’s going to be well and truly gone for _three months,_ and instead of just fading right back into hopelessness and restlessness, he’s leaving his stories with Marco. More than dog-less Oman, more than cranky Japanese monks. 

An _adventure._ A real one.

A living, breathing piece of Eren’s wandering soul immortalized in the clearly-stuffed pages of this little leatherbound journal. 

With this, there’s nothing to discourage Marco from imagining, nothing to stop him from dreaming of real places infinitely closer than the glimmering echoes of his long-dead stars. No, these tattered pages are _encouraging._ Gently, wordlessly urging Marco to come back down to earth and live in the lucid ghost of Eren’s distant bravery. 

“E-Eren—”

He doesn’t need to explain. Somehow, Eren already knows. His ears are flushed bright pink like he understands completely how intimate this is, but he still doesn’t take it back. “Really, Marco. I wanna leave it with you,” Eren mumbles, carefully setting the book in Marco’s lap. 

Marco wants to ask aloud if it’s really okay, taking something this valuable, this _personal_ even though they barely know each other, but the shyly hopeful look on Eren’s face squashes any more polite protests he might have. Instead, he thanks the brunette breathlessly, running a reverent hand over the dented cover. There’s sand dug deep into the wrinkles in the leather, so fine it’s almost invisible, but it sticks to the trembling tips of his fingers when he pulls them away.

“Hm, is that sand? That’s China, then. I swear, I’m _still_ finding the damn Gobi in my ears every time I shower.” Eren chuckles, folding one knee up to his chest so he can rest his chin on it and shoot Marco another lopsided smile. “Give it a look, if you want. Maybe we can talk about it when I come back?”

Blinking back up at Eren, Marco nods vacantly, holding his gaze for just a beat longer than he really should. Eren doesn’t look away, though. He just peers right back at Marco, the unchanged melancholy daylight now seeming to darken his vibrant stare.

“I’d like that,” Marco mumbles eventually, tucking the journal safely under his arm as he stands.

“Yeah. Um, me too.”

Another pause, this one thick with the threat of an awkward goodbye, until Marco says, “Well, uh. I should. You know.”

“ _Oh,_ right. Work thing. Geek Squad.”

“Yeah. Not really. Kinda.”

“Right.” Biting his lip, Eren squints up at Marco, but then he’s shaking his head, and with it the morose veil that had fallen over him. He stands and barges right into Marco’s personal space, arms slipping around his chest and pulling him into an enthusiastic hug. The strength of it squeezes a hoarse wheeze out of Marco, which just makes Eren laugh and squeeze again.

When he steps back, somehow not tripping over his ukulele case, Eren gives a lazy mock-salute. 

“See you around Halloween, then. Hopefully.”

“Y-yeah,” Marco blurts, somehow still feeling the pressure of Eren’s affection around his ribs, but not uncomfortably so. Just a lingering sensation, a shadow of that warm touch tingling across his skin in bursts of soothing little sparks. “Halloween.”

Eren stuffs his hands in his pockets and beams up at him, and the hoodie threatens to fall off him again.

“Well, um. G-good luck, Eren.”

“Thanks, man.” 

Marco checks to make sure he still has the journal, then gives Eren an awkward little wave, and for the second time, he turns away without giving Eren his phone number. It’s not like it’d be useful in the wilderness of New Zealand, anyway. 

Right?

Oh, fuck it. 

Digging his wallet out, Marco turns back to Eren and pulls his last bent business card out of the bill fold, holding it out to the surprised brunette. Eren takes it gently, sharp eyes flicking over Marco’s name, his email, his cell number.

“Call me when you come back,” Marco murmurs, cramming his wallet back into his pocket.

“Yeah,” Eren replies, his voice quiet as he runs his thumbs slowly over the faded text a few times. After a moment, he blinks back up at Marco and gives him a sweet, almost vulnerable little smile. “Yeah, I will.”

“Okay.” Marco swallows nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, before he realizes he’s probably _really_ late now and stammers some unintelligible collection of goodbyes and apologies, gesturing lamely over his shoulder.

Eren laughs at him, loud and pretty, and if there’s one clear memory Marco could stand to cling to for the next three months, it’d be the soft flush across Eren’s cheeks and the lively ring of his laughter, his loose hoodie hanging off his shoulder again.

\--

Although he hadn’t specified when exactly he was leaving, Eren isn’t busking at the park the next rainy afternoon, nor the one after that, so Marco assumes that he’s already gone.

Well, he’s not _entirely_ gone this time. The rumpled journal on Marco’s kitchen table keeps that last memory fresh in his mind, imprinted on his quickly-beating heart every time that laugh echoes in his ears. 

Marco doesn’t get on his own case for the little crush he’s already developed on the brunette. After all, how could he not? Eren symbolizes everything Marco never knew he wanted, everything he wishes he could be. Eren is courage and strength and determination. Eren is _free._

Of course, Eren also seems to possess a few qualities that Marco couldn’t ever imagine wanting in himself. He’s brash and impulsive, almost aggressively lackadaisical, and he’s also pretty much the definition of ‘lone wolf.’ Marco doesn’t think he would want to be any of those things, but they look damn good on Eren. They _fit_ him somehow. 

Sure, Marco’s always been quick to read people, but he finds himself almost unnerved by how much he’s learned in two brief meetings. Eren’s such an open book that between his words and his body language, Marco already feels like he _knows_ him. The voice of caution quietly warns him not to make a god of a man, not so quickly, but he finds himself loath to listen to it for once.

Besides, it’s not like he isn’t used to disappointment. It’s the price he’s always paid for his optimism.

On Saturday, Marco tries to figure out what to do with the journal. He hasn’t even opened it yet. Part of him wants to savor it, to dose it out so that just as he looks up from the very last word, his eyes find Eren again, smiling and glowing with the southern sun. Another part of him wants to devour it in one fell swoop, to overload his unprepared mind and leave himself drunk with the dry ink smell radiating off the pages, and then to do it again and again until he knows this adventure by heart.

Mostly what he does is stare at it.

He’d tried flipping a coin, but he could never seem to agree with gravity’s ruling. Not even two out of three.

Astonishingly, not even the strange comforts of space are enough of a distraction. His thoughts wander away from the careful, distinct narration of his documentaries almost as soon as they start, and they never wander far before they land again on the messy pages of the journal resting on the table behind him.

Marco’s staring at it again over the back of the couch when a small part of him wonders if maybe he shouldn’t read it at all. If maybe he should put it somewhere out of sight and let it fade from his preoccupation. 

After all, reading those words will change him. Permanently.

Even opening that journal means that Marco will be breathing in Eren’s soul. He’ll learn things, new sights and smells and words and god knows what else. Nothing will ever be the same. He’ll see the world differently, think of it differently. Maybe he’ll even stop looking to the stars, and that idea alone is more than a little distressing. 

Marco has worked hard to build this stable life for himself, for his eventual family. This journal, though... with these stories, these very real, very _tangible_ fairy tales, Eren threatens to shake apart the foundations of his cozy little world. To pull away the plush rug Marco’s kept over anything that didn’t fit into the mold shaped around his uneventful existence. Even so, even with the oath of utter chaos on his lips, somehow Marco knows Eren won’t let him fall. He knows that as his simple life is falling to pieces around him, Eren’s hand in his will keep him afloat. Keep him safe.

And once all the tattered shreds of Marco’s American dream have sunk to the bottom of the wine-dark sea, he believes Eren will still be there, and he’ll pull Marco onto the sparkling shores of the vast and unfamiliar world lying beyond the walls of his broken cage.

If Marco reads this journal, he will never again feel free here. The blindfold will come off.

He’s _terrified._

It’s almost paradoxical, though. Just _knowing_ Eren is enough to force Marco to realize that he’s wearing a blindfold in the first place. Even if he chucks the journal and changes his phone number and avoids the park, the wool over his eyes is itching now, and it’s only going to itch more the longer he tries to ignore it. If he doesn’t rip it off now, he’ll do it later, or he’ll let the feeling drive him mad.

So really, the only option he has is to read the damn journal.

Marco hates driving himself around in circles, so to cleanse his palate of this dilemma for now, he drowns the inevitable in a bottle of wine and watches Spongebob Squarepants until he passes out sprawled across the couch.

\--

The hangover he wakes up with is almost worth the fourteen solid hours of blissful ignorance the wine brought him.

He curls up in the corner of his shower and groans into the afternoon, but once he feels mortal enough to come out, he’s faced once again with the lumpy little book set neatly on the table. It’s inescapable.

Marco has the pity to order himself a pizza, greasy and cheesy and dripping questionably-slippery mushrooms, and while he’s waiting for his disgusting hangover cure, he stares down at the journal and tries to resign himself to his fate.

His world is changed. It’s already too late. There’s no going back now. The only way left to go is forward, and forward is a ninety-degree drop into a world that will no longer try to contain him. 

The pie comes, and Marco chokes down slice after thick, radioactive slice, his legs crossed under him on his chair and the book still untouched before him. He’s careful not to get any of his sewer pizza on it, at least.

It’s late afternoon when he finally rests his trembling palm on the cover. No use trying to decide ahead of time how he’ll devour it, whether he’ll savor it or gorge himself on it. He’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.

Eren musing lazily that he’ll let New Zealand surprise him comes to mind, and Marco suddenly finds himself much less stunned by that thought. The Matrix is already failing.

His hands shake harder when he carefully slips the worn elastic off, and the cover bounces up slightly under the released pressure of all the crap apparently crammed between the pages. Marco swallows, stalls for a drink of water, then finally pulls the front cover open.

_‘China, Mongolia, who knows. June 2013.’_

_‘I am going to have sand-ass for the rest of my life.’_

\--

To say that Marco has an overactive imagination is an understatement. 

Honestly, even knowing the very earthy, frank person Eren seems to be, Marco had kind of expected long pages of hastily-scribbled poems, quiet musings on the philosophy of humanity, recordings of idle thoughts that would subtly catalyze an explosive, irrevocable shift in Marco’s way of thinking. Without meaning to, he had given Eren the literary firepower of the great thinkers he himself idolizes, the ability to wordsmith his way right off the page and into Marco’s brain. Before even opening the thing, Marco had filled the journal to bursting with breathtaking revelations, with clear descriptions of distant lands to fuel Marco’s unprepared imagination, tangible recreations of his incredible journey as distinct and overpowering as Kafka or Vonnegut or Bradbury.

If not enlightened, Marco had expected at least to be _informed._

To put it simply, Eren is shit at keeping a diary. The journey had clearly changed him, but no one reading his journal would ever be able to tell why.

Even though it’s nothing at all like he had expected, what _is_ there certainly has its merits. Eren’s sparse commentary nearly leaves Marco in stitches with its dry humor. Every page is overflowing with little scribbles and drawings, rough translations, snippets of loose verses, notes to buy more of one thing or less of another, splatters of dirt and rainwater and what Marco suspects to be blood. Literally anything that could feasibly be stuck to paper has made it between these rough pages. There are pages where Eren did his best to wax poetic about the breathtaking Mongolian sky, and large gaps in time where he apparently did nothing but _live._

Surprisingly detailed drawings of mountains, camels, rock formations, drunk Mongolians... Marco can’t help but laugh at the mildly offensive cartoons starring a trio of Norwegian hikers he hooked up with back through China, into Tibet, and up to the border of Nepal, finding himself particularly amused by Eren’s bone-deep fear of the tiny blonde girl with the constant frown.

Once the rush of the ink has faded, though, and once Marco sits back and tries to digest the contents of the journal, he realizes with a slow, sinking feeling that he doesn’t feel overwhelmed. He feels _lost._

The passing twilight of Marco’s old life is not the dawning sun of Eren’s travels, bright and clear and comforting, but the falling night of what he had left unsaid. The thoughts between the lines, the gaps in time and space, the haunting quietude of every instance Eren had declined to put his experiences into coherent words, of every time he let his adventure play out before him without the distraction of a pen and paper. For one hundred and thirteen days, Eren existed in the light of an unknown universe, and the days that changed his life were the days that the book slept untouched in the bottom of his bag. 

Eren’s journal has lifted the blindfold from Marco’s eyes, but the lights are still off, and he cannot see his new world from within the uncharted heart of darkness Eren’s unvoiced revelations have painted around him.

\--

Marco reads the journal twice in one night, curled up at his kitchen table with his cold pizza for company as he searches for the meaning. He stays up late and tries for a third time, but midway through he’s struggling to stay conscious, and eventually he falls asleep on Eren’s lost month in the wild of Mongolia.

When he dreams, he dreams of open skies and Nepalese jails, but his overworked imagination cannot fill in the strung-together days of silence.

\--

Work the next day is rough, with the crick in his neck from sleeping on the table, but he powers through and goes right back to the journal the moment he gets home.

And the next day. And the next. And the day after that.

Before Marco realizes it, August has passed him by in a teasing flutter of ticking seconds, but he’s still no closer to figuring out Eren’s cryptic story. The days where he’d written are enjoyable, and they fill Marco’s head with flashes of impossibly blue skies that seem to devour the edges of the earth, but the missing days haunt him for far longer.

It’s the end of September before he reluctantly admits to himself that reading Eren’s journal just isn’t enough to break open his cage.

It’s just a long, sand-filled, bloodstained ‘you had to be there,’ and Marco has to live alone with those blank spaces until Eren can answer his endless burning questions.

\--

Marco finds himself more than a little depressed as the rainy season kicks up in early October.

He becomes frustrated by the wanderlust thundering through his veins, by the desire to see something that defies words. All he sees is Seattle, and he is still very much alone in it. 

Even though he remembers well Eren’s estimated return date, Marco finds himself waiting at the park every Wednesday in October. He’s getting tired of hot dogs pretty fast, but to be honest, he’s long since grown tired of just about everything. He lingers in the park almost to the end of his lunch hour, waiting under his little umbrella, desperate for Eren to come back and tell him what he saw, what he did, what happened in the darkness of unrecorded history.

Halloween flickers by as uneventfully as nearly every other day in Marco’s life. 

\--

The first Wednesday in November passes, and Marco’s sure that Eren’s not coming back to Seattle. He must’ve found another wordless nirvana in New Zealand with the sheep. Or maybe he changed his mind and trekked off somewhere else. Or maybe he’s just plain not coming back.

All Marco has is the journal, taunting him with its gaping holes and unwritten mysteries, and he doesn’t know how to _get there._

He doesn’t even know how to leave Seattle.

All he knows is how to find the hot dog cart on Wednesdays, and just like everything before it, that once-great adventure withers into nothing more than normal, normal, normal.

\--

The third Wednesday in November passes, and Marco’s sure Eren’s dead. Do sheep stampede? Did he try to evade visa laws and end up on the wrong side of a rifle again? Did a fault line crack open under him and pull him into the long dark beneath New Zealand?

Maybe a shark ate him when he was island-hopping.

Maybe all Marco has left of his brush with the fading wilderness is the black sun that rises from Eren’s insufficient scribbles.

The bitter taste of disappointment pulses with a dull, tremulous fear, and Marco has no idea where to go from here.

\--

That Friday evening, Marco’s phone lights up with the racket of an unknown number, and his hands are shaking so badly that he almost throws his phone out the window trying to answer the call before it goes to voicemail.

“H-hello?”

“Hey.” Smooth, relaxed, not mangled. Just... very late. Marco breathes a shivering sigh of relief into his palm, squeezing his eyes shut as he holds his phone tighter against his ear. He can’t quite find words yet, but it’s fine, because Eren’s got him.

“So I know it’s not Wednesday, but... park?”


	2. Firebird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco grows more and more certain that Eren is a magician of some kind, but he's also not entirely sure that he minds all that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://avoidingavoidance.tumblr.com)

Marco hates to admit it, but he’s out of breath by the time he reaches the park, rain hammering down in sheets against his tiny umbrella and soaking slowly up the hems of his slacks. In his rush to scramble out the door, he’d left the journal on his kitchen table, but he’s not thinking about that right now.

He’s thinking about the grey, rainy gloom of their shaded walkway, so much larger and so much darker without the bright red brat stand occupying it. He’s thinking about the steady stream of grey, rainy people moving through the park, each consumed by their own thoughts and their own worlds and their own adventures. He’s thinking about the fact that Eren is _not here._

Looking around again, Marco chews his lip and wonders why the hell he’s still panting slightly. He’s not _this_ out of shape. At least, not as much as his quick breath and his pounding heart would lead him to believe.

Still, he’s winded. Antsy. Looking around for Eren and finding nothing again, just the ghost of his darkened daydreams and the vast disinformation curled around the edges of his troubled thoughts. 

He misses him at first, the shining sun that he is, probably because Marco would never assume that he’d find Eren wearing a pretty yellow sundress and rubber rainboots at the end of fucking _November_ in _Seattle._

When his eyes adjust to the image and his brain catches up, Marco thinks maybe he should just stop assuming anything about Eren for his own mental well-being, because there he is. Hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, his beanie soaked to his head, lips pursed as he looks around, feasibly waiting for Marco.

Marco awkwardly fords the river of people, mumbling his apologies and holding his umbrella high, and Eren catches sight of him about midway across.

It’s been four months this time, four long months since they saw each other last, and once again, that expanse of time means absolutely nothing to Eren.

He raises his hand and grins the same grin, warm and welcoming and bright, little laughter lines at the corners of his brilliant eyes, and Marco can already feel his internal timekeeper folding itself up and tucking itself away for a while. 

“Hey,” Eren says casually when Marco makes it over to him, beaming up at him as he scoots closer, under the shelter of Marco’s umbrella. He slicks his long, dripping bangs back under the heavy edge of his drenched beanie and asks, “How’s it going?” 

Marco’s mouth opens to respond, but he finds himself speechless again.

He has no idea where to even begin.

Every question he had before, every question he currently has, every worry and concern and thought whirl together into a vicious mental traffic jam, and trying to pick out even a few words is like trying to swim through molasses and slowly losing the battle. Meanwhile, Eren’s smiling patiently at him, waiting for Marco to at least close his mouth or something.

“Weather’s miserable,” Eren laughs finally, nudging his elbow into Marco’s side. “D’you wanna go get coffee?”

Words still stuck in the bewitching quicksand that is Eren’s presence, Marco nods dumbly and shifts his umbrella further over the sunny little brunette, letting Eren lead the way toward the Starbucks up the street.

\--

It’s rude to stare. Marco knows that. 

Still, he can’t help but stare at Eren as he cradles his own coffee and waits for Eren to join him. He’d ordered his usual, a hot bucket of light roast, and Eren had ordered the most absurd-sounding frozen sugar monstrosity on the menu. It’s probably a rare delicacy for him.

Eren pulls at least four different non-American currencies out of several different pockets before Marco trips over and swipes his own phone to pay with a sheepish grin, cautiously avoiding Eren’s gaze as the brunette huffs and puffs his cheeks out at Marco. 

That expression is stupidly cute. Trickling droplets of rainwater and all.

“You didn’t have to,” Eren says as they meander over toward the end of the counter, stuffing his mess of a wallet back into his jacket. “But I appreciate it. I really thought I had stateside bills...”

“I-it’s okay,” Marco replies, rubbing the back of his neck. He gestures lamely toward a little table by the window, and Eren nods, his hands sliding back into his pockets as a relaxed smile passes over his face again. 

Once Marco’s snagged the table, his hands curl around his still-hot coffee, and he sets himself to staring again.

Eren, who’s whistling quietly and rocking back onto his heels as he waits, is _wearing a dress._ Feasibly on purpose.

Even more confusing is that he is absolutely rocking it.

Additionally, he’s a month late and also infuriatingly awful at keeping a journal, but at least Marco now knows that the faint scar running across his brow is from an _extremely_ lucky missed bullet courtesy of some very annoyed Nepalese border guards.

As long as Eren is at this safe distance and his attention is otherwise occupied, the logical knot in Marco’s brain begins to unwind slightly so he can put his ducks in a row. Maybe even start to plan out the order of his questions.

Eren gets his frozen thing, though, with a beaming smile and a loud thanks, and once he’s bounded over and dropped himself heavily into the seat across from Marco, all those neatly-ordered ducks go flying again.

All he knows for sure is that he’s really _really_ glad Eren isn’t dead, and that he decided to come back up to rainy Seattle for coffee.

“So,” Eren prompts, crossing his arms on the table with a crooked smile. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” Marco breathes, chuckling softly. The peculiar warmth he associates purely with Eren fills his chest again, wrapping in warm licks around his knotted heart and sending his blood pumping a little faster, a little more lively. “Good.”

“Cool.” Eren licks his lips and laughs, shifting to sit on one of his feet, seemingly uncaring for the water that must still be beading on the slick rubber of his yellow boots. “Work going well?”

“Y-yeah, yeah,” Marco replies, running his hand through his hair. “Same as always, pretty much.” He bites his lip when Eren tilts his head and his vivid gaze softens. “You, um.”

“I know, I know,” Eren sighs, letting his head drop for a moment before he straightens up again with a grin. “I’m _way_ late.”

“Oh. That too, yeah.”

“Okay, so.” Shifting closer, Eren spreads his fingers over the surface the small table between them, taking up all of his own space and most of Marco’s as if he belongs there. “New Zealand has all these little earthquakes, right? It’s sitting right on the Ring of Fire or something,” Eren says. Johnny Cash plays briefly through Marco’s cloud-filled mind. “Turns out, unless you have an active cell phone to, like, warn you about them, you probably shouldn’t hike through the wilderness at random. On the plus side, I lived in a _great_ cave for a while.”

Marco’s brow furrows. 

“I, uh,” he starts, tilting his head. “I’m really having trouble telling if you’re joking.”

Eren laughs, exactly as loud and pretty as Marco remembers, and his poor heart skips a solid beat or seven. “I’m kind of joking. I lived on a farm I stumbled across for a while because of a landslide or something, and they let me stay if I helped out. I birthed a goat!” Eren beams proudly. Marco almost wants to cry.

“A goat.”

“Yeah, man, it was rad. Kinda gross, but rad.”

His eyes closing slowly, Marco slouches until he can rest his frazzled head on his own folded forearms, once again happily falling victim to Eren’s absurd hypnotism. 

Once Marco comes out of hiding again, Eren gladly begins recounting more weird stories, and despite all his previous burning questions and confusion and frustration, Marco leans his chin in his palm and listens eagerly. 

Time slips away with the shaded sun, Eren gesturing wildly and narrating his adventures in much greater and more enthusiastic detail than he ever did in his journal, and now that he’s right here, right where Marco can see him, hear him, touch him, he doesn’t feel like he’s drowning at all. He’s warm and alive with the fire of Eren’s passion and his humor, and all of his questions are answered as they arise, as easy as breathing.

This is the metamorphosis he’d been anticipating. This is his brave new world, and today it’s full of terrifyingly large sheep and terrifyingly large farmers and bad goat puns, and Eren is doing so much more than holding Marco’s hand as he guides him back through his own weathered footsteps. He’s earnestly pushing Marco through, as encouraging and boisterous as ever, and the light of his sun is bright and clear and honest. _Bizarre,_ but honest.

The Starbucks actually closes before Eren runs out of stories, to their mutual surprise. Eren apologizes, though, charming and polite as they scoot out the door and into the now-misting rain.

“So, um,” Marco starts, opening his umbrella and holding it over Eren again. “How long are you gonna be around this time?”

Eren shrugs with a smile, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. “Few months at least. Gotta plan my next trip, busk up the cash, all that.”

“Oh, right, right.” Watching Eren fidget hesitantly, the hem of his dress fluttering across his shifting knees, Marco realizes that Eren’s waiting for something. What, Marco has no idea. “Uh, where are you staying?”

Apparently, he’d hit the nail on the head. Eren lets his head drop again before he looks up at Marco through his thick eyelashes, his lip caught anxiously between his teeth. “I actually have a really obnoxious favor to ask of you, Marco.”

Marco raises his eyebrows, head tilted in question. “Oh?”

Eren sighs and rubs the back of his neck as he casts his gaze aside, shyness curling into what Marco could swear is shame. “The guy here whose couch I usually crash on can’t swing it this time. He’s got a girlfriend now, they’re all serious, you know. Don’t need a tramp and his maps taking up their living room.”

“Oh,” Marco hums, already starting to smile softly. Brightening sparks of impulse flutter beneath his worries and wash them out, leaving a strange, giddy sort of excitement in their place. He lets Eren continue, though.

“I was, uh. Shit,” Eren mumbles, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Could I crash with you for a day or two? If it’s a pain, I have options, I just. Uh. I dunno, you’re cool, we’re cool, you know...”

Eren seems surprised when Marco laughs lightly, blinking widely up at him. Marco shrugs and nods, sliding his free hand into his still-wet pocket. “Yeah, sure. It’s no problem. I left your journal at my place anyway.”

“R-really?” Eren visibly relaxes, tension melting out of his body as he grins up at him. “It’ll only be a day or two, I promise. Just so I can call around, see what my options are these days. I’ll be super quiet.”

Marco nods, the last safe shred of his reserve preventing him from getting ahead of himself. Just a few days to start with. A day or two to see what Eren’s like outside of the teeming wild, to watch how he plans his adventures and hear the songs he sings, to ask him a million questions and get a trillion answers and see his new world in the true light of Eren’s rising sun.

He’s more than used to this feeling of bubbling infatuation, so he lets his heart sing while Eren calls his friend and arranges to grab his stuff, and he lets his vision tint yet rosier when Eren says, “Yeah, it’s cool, my guardian angel’s got a couch.”

If you ask Marco, though, he’s not the one with wings.

\--

Marco’s both surprised and impressed when he finds that almost everything Eren owns can fit into two huge, stuffed backpacks, left in a clearly-unused corner of his buddy’s house next to his battered little ukulele case. Thomas, Eren calls the guy, but Marco spares him little more than a passing nod as he helps Eren load his worldly possessions into his car. 

From the sidewalk, he watches Eren enthusiastically shake the guy’s hand and thank him, his genuine gratitude radiating off of him in waves. Marco feels like Eren wears nearly every intense emotion he owns on his sleeve, and in explosive colors at that. He’s an open book, one significantly more informative than the twine-bound stack of well-loved, colorful journals resting safely in the backseat of his little car.

Eren bounces down from the porch and nods to Marco, chirping, “Mischief managed. Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Marco laughs, raising a bemused eyebrow as the brunette drops into the passenger seat, the car jostling under his sparse weight. Thomas watches stiffly from his doorway, arms crossed over his chest, his stony face nearly unreadable as he shakes his head. He makes pointed eye contact with Marco and raises his eyebrows, his brow furrowed almost as if in warning.

 _‘Be careful,’_ that expression says to Marco.

 _‘Get stuffed,’_ Marco’s polite smile says in return, right before he rounds the car and slides into the driver’s seat.

As he buckles himself in and watches Eren fiddle with the car radio, Marco hums quietly. He’s more than aware of the firebomb sitting close beside him and smiling cheerfully up at him, more than aware that Eren has the natural, easy potential to leave Marco’s perfectly arranged little life in burnt shambles. He pretty much already has, just by existing so vibrantly within sniffing range of Marco’s bulletproof optimism.

And he’s perfectly fine with that.

He’s exercised twenty-six years of caution, missed opportunities, and disappointment. He’s sorely used to the stiff blinders sheltering him from the forks in his path less traveled by, keeping his narrow reality aimed sternly forward and his wandering daydreams aimed desperately skyward. He knows when he’s building things up out of proportion, idealizing them into towering fantasies. 

Even in the brief time they’ve known each other, however, Eren has pulled no punches in completely shattering Marco’s pretty expectations and leaving them scattered across the floor like a mural of broken stars. If not eye-opening, it’s _different,_ and it’s a step above and beyond exciting. Eren has already started dragging Marco up out of his predictable little routine, leaving just a taste of his chaotic fire for Marco to willingly chase. His grey life is already more colorful just by virtue of having Eren exist within it.

Eren blinks up at him and tilts his head questioningly, so Marco starts the car, whistling along to the radio as they drive off. 

May as well see how far he can stretch the stale limits of his risk-taking, even if it’s just living vicariously through the endless, awe-inspiring reaches of Eren’s strange journeys. 

\--

As they climb the stairs and walk down the hallway to Marco’s apartment, Eren looks all around them, seemingly oblivious to the stares of the few people they pass on the way. He smiles widely and says hello to each of them anyway as he trails close behind. Marco wonders idly if Eren’s enormously friendly presence is a product of his travels. Maybe that’s how he pulls himself out of trouble, or perhaps how he gets into trouble in the first place.

“So, uh, this is me, number 507,” Marco says, flicking on the lights as he leads Eren into his apartment, standing aside politely to let the brunette explore. “You can set up wherever, I don’t really have a preference. Make yourself at home.” Eren leaves his boots by the door before he meanders through the main room, curiously admiring Marco’s orderly living room with a soft smile. “The, uh, bathroom’s to the right over here, by the bedroom. I don’t mind taking the couch, if you want?”

“Nah, I couldn’t kick you out,” Eren chirps, slipping his coat off and dropping it and his wet beanie on top of one of his backpacks. Marco gingerly sets the towering pile of journals on his kitchen table and watches Eren look around. For the first time, he feels a slight pang of embarrassment at how minimalist his living space is, wishing he had something interesting for Eren to look at beyond a few movies and a mass of old, dusty books lining his shelves. At least a weird statue or something, maybe some photos. Something with a story for him to tell.

Eren’s content to investigate what’s there, though, trailing his finger slowly along the edges of Marco’s displayed interests.

“Besides,” Eren continues, leaning down to check out Marco’s documentary shelf. “I can’t really say I’m a big fan of beds. Too comfortable, if that makes sense. I mostly slept in the barn on the farm, even though they wanted to give me a room. I like to hear the wind and shit. The animals, too, whenever they saw fit to pile in there.” He hums as he runs his finger down the thin spine of one of Marco’s books, pulling it out and standing up straight to grin over at him. “Thank you, though. Much obliged.”

“Of course,” Marco murmurs. Eren smiles reassuringly, somehow unwinding the strange, tight feeling of inadequacy building up in Marco’s chest, and shows him the book he’d taken out.

“I live my life by this, you know,” Eren says lightly, pointing to the title. _The Alchemist,_ by Paulo Coelho. Probably the one book in his whole apartment Marco hasn’t touched since high school for whatever reason. “You have awesome taste.”

“Oh, um, thanks.” Marco rubs the back of his neck, trying not to stare as Eren sets the book on the coffee table and sets to wandering again. His dress has pockets, Marco notices, and Eren’s hands slip familiarly into them as he pauses by the wide window and looks out into the twinkling urban nighttime. Marco’s still fairly confused by Eren’s choice of clothing, but he’d honestly almost forgotten about it as the evening went on. It just seems to fit him, in color and style, and he’s obviously quite used to it. 

Seattle’s a pretty liberal place, but a dark-skinned, heavily tattooed dude in a dress had garnered some strange glances, something Eren had been completely oblivious to but that Marco has never quite been able to keep himself from noticing.

“Hey, Eren,” he says, cautiously polite as he slides his own jacket off and leaves it on the coat rack by the door. 

“Yeah?”

“Sorry, uh, can I ask you a weird question?” Eren looks over at Marco, watching him cross the room and seat himself on the chair beside the couch. He turns to face him and nods, sucking idly on his lip. Purely out of habit, Marco nods in return, crossing his legs under himself. As he tries to come up with a polite way to phrase his question, obviously waffling under that intense green gaze, Marco fiddles with the seam of his pants. The last thing he wants to do is piss Eren off and leave a bad taste in their mouths, not when everything’s been going so smoothly, so easily between them.

“Spit it out,” Eren laughs, idly swishing the hem of his dress. He rocks back onto his heels again, then forward to curl his toes in the carpet, keeping his body in constant, flowing motion. Restless.

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” Marco stammers, chewing on his thumbnail. Eren raises a thick eyebrow, wordlessly encouraging, so Marco decides to just get it over with. “C-can I ask about the dress?”

Eren blinks widely, raising both eyebrows now, before he looks down at the garment in question and laughs. “What about it? You mean why I’m wearing it?” Marco nods dumbly, but Eren just shrugs his colorful shoulders with a wide grin. “Why does anyone wear anything, you know? It’s comfortable, plus it’s got these huge pockets. Very convenient. And I like the color. Yellow looks good on me.”

Marco definitely can’t argue with that. He smiles back at Eren, relaxing back into his chair and running a hand through his still-damp hair. Damn rain. “You don’t, uh. You don’t care what other people think?”

Tilting his head with a hum, Eren considers the question, rubbing the top of his foot against his calf as he does. When he decides on his answer, he shrugs again and moves to flop across the couch, easily making himself comfortable. “Why the hell would I?”

Laughing nervously, Marco nods and pretends he understands what that’s like. What it’s like to not wonder constantly how his own tidy appearance checks out in the eyes of those around him.

It seems that Eren can see through Marco like glass, because he laces his fingers lazily behind his head and shoots him a soft, soothing smile. He apparently doesn’t shave, either, given the fuzzy state of his underarms. Marco isn’t surprised.

“Marco, let me put it this way,” Eren says smoothly, focusing his attention entirely on the fidgety brunette. “There are places on this planet that have slept untouched for decades. Secret places, wild places, right?” Marco nods vaguely, trying and failing to imagine. “Well, I’ve breathed the air in those places. The earth there has held my weight. I’ve seen those secrets, smelled them, tasted them in some cases. When I left them, they looked just like I found them, but now they live in my bones too.” 

Marco stares, eyes wide, lips parted slightly. His head is floating through Eren’s easy words, his body lost somewhere a thousand miles down, swimming dazedly in the roaring green wilderness filling that welcoming gaze.

“My body is home to secrets from a hundred different countries, and if I wanna put a dress on it, I’m gonna fucking put a dress on it, social norms be damned.” Eren grins and crosses his ankles. “But look, you could wear dresses too, if you wanted to. You just gotta stop looking at yourself through other people’s eyes.”

It seems that Eren does, in some capacity, possess the capability to render Marco utterly speechless with his words.

There’s no good, eloquent response to Eren’s answer, not beyond lame excuses or a lopsided shrug, so Marco just bites his lip and stares down at his own limp hands, letting awe and wonderment carry him for as long as the feeling lasts. Eren hums to himself, quiet and relaxed, as he waits for Marco’s soul to return to his body. 

By the time his feet have touched the ground again, Marco recognizes clearly that the soft, wispy edges of his rapidly-blooming crush are starting to crystallize in his chest, slowly tempering into a feeling significantly more substantial than the rose-tinted breath of infatuation. Just like that.

\--

Half as a joke, Marco offers to make Eren a mountain of bacon for dinner, grinning at the way the brunette laughs at that. He enthusiastically accepts the offer, apparently still very serious about his diet of pig and pig by-products, so they kill a pound of bacon and half a bottle of wine over yet more tales from New Zealand. Marco’s more than exhausted, though, between the near-constant concern from the last month and the excitement of the day, so he leaves Eren to get settled in. 

Once he’s curled up in his bed, the soft light from the living room drawing a thin beam across his wall, it occurs to him that not twenty-four hours ago, he’d been entirely convinced that Eren was dead.

Now Eren stands resurrected, making himself at home in the next room as he curls up on Marco’s couch with Marco’s book as if he’s always been there. Almost like he hadn’t even been gone for four straight months, like this isn’t only the third time they’ve met. 

The comfortable sense of warm familiarity that seems to rise from Eren’s bones settles perfectly into Marco’s, once again taking him aback. By all definitions, Eren is a stranger, but he hasn’t ever _felt_ that way. It’s almost like, somewhere within his jar of secrets, Eren carries with him some kind of loamy earth magic, some living token of the indescribable wild that latches onto the folded-up, flattened, hidden part of Marco that’s always wanted nothing more than to cast itself into the unknown and fly.

\--

When Marco wakes up the next morning, sometime around blissful noonish, he finds that Eren is awake and right where Marco had left him, stretched across the couch with the book. Still wearing the dress, even. 

Badly stifling a yawn, Marco wanders over to perch in the armchair again, catching Eren’s attention when he mumbles, “You’re up early.”

Eren grins sheepishly and closes the book, ruffling his already-messy hair. “I actually, uh, didn’t sleep. Still got the boat equivalent of jet lag.”

Marco raises his eyebrows, slightly concerned. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Mm... what day is it?”

“Saturday?”

Pursing his lips, Eren’s narrowed eyes wander, obviously struggling to remember. Finally, he laughs, “You know, I’m really not even sure. A while ago?”

“I was gonna offer you coffee,” Marco muses, scratching his head idly. “But I think I’d rather offer you NyQuil. How are you even walking?”

“Meh.” Eren grins widely, setting the book on the coffee table. “Hey, d’you mind if I use this table for maps and shit? I’ll keep it neat.”

“Oh, sure,” Marco replies, his curiosity more than piqued. “Like I said, make yourself at home, I don’t mind.” Eren nods and thanks him, swinging his feet to the floor so he can stand and stretch up onto his toes with a squeaky sort of hum and more than a few cracks and pops. Marco stands as well, walking backward toward the bedroom as he says, “Feel free to take a shower if you need to, I’m gonna run to the store. D’you need anything?”

“Nope!” Eren turns, the wrinkled skirt of his dress flicking out behind him as he moves to rummage around in one of his bags. “I’m not allergic to anything either, thank god. Oh, except penicillin, but that’s it.”

“I’ll try not to get the salt and the antibiotics mixed up again,” Marco teases, moving back to his bedroom to get dressed. Eren’s laugh follows lightly in his footsteps, softer here than the loud, barking laugh he unleashes upon the unsuspecting public. Marco wonders how many different laughs Eren has, and maybe ruminates just a little morosely on how many of them he’ll get to hear before Eren’s gone again.

\--

The ‘quick’ trip to the corner store takes a little longer than Marco had anticipated, mostly because he finds himself shamefully obsessing over what to bring back. What does Eren even like? Aside from pig flesh, anyway. Hot dogs aren’t exactly impressive, though, and he doesn’t want to run that joke into the ground so soon. 

Does Eren like vegetables? Would he prefer beer over the mid-shelf white wine Marco keeps around? He knows Eren likes sweet things, just based on their coffee meet-up, but how often? Does he snack like Marco imagines a seasoned traveler might, with weird hand-crafted protein trail mix or something, or does he just forage for whatever seems vaguely edible?

Marco quietly kicks himself for not asking more specifically before he’d left. Of course Eren would do his best not to inconvenience Marco. He’s been so polite, and so hesitant to ask Marco for anything, but he’s been surprised and almost relieved every time his requests are met with casual acceptance. It’s like Eren’s not used to being asked those basic courtesy questions, like he’s used to answering as unobtrusively as possible. 

He ends up buying a little bit of everything, and certainly more snack food than he could ever even consider eating by himself.

When he returns, he calls out to let Eren know it’s just him, although he’s not entirely sure why.

Eren’s head pops up over the back of the couch, his damp, shaggy hair going every which way and, hilariously, curling wildly at the tips. 

“Dude,” he blurts, an enormous grin spread across his face, “Your shower is _top notch._ I don’t think I’ve had a shower that awesome in years.”

Marco laughs as he sets his bags down on the kitchen table, shooting a crooked grin back at Eren. “Glad you enjoyed it. I didn’t know you have curly hair, by the way.”

“Oh, man.” Eren vaults nimbly over the back of the couch, padding over to poke in the bags as Marco puts the groceries away. “So, when I was a baby, I was _blonde._ Majorly blonde. And my hair curled, like, a thousand times worse than this.” Eren pulls a chair out and straddles it casually, crossing his arms atop the back. “My mom called me Shirley Temple until I was about four and it darkened out.”

Furrowing his brow, Marco shifts the contents of his fridge around to free up room and tries to imagine that. Blonde Eren. He giggles softly at the dorky image that comes up, peering over the fridge door. “That must have looked hilarious.”

“It was _terrible,_ ” Eren agrees, pushing his long bangs back out of his eyes. “My parents were so confused, because they both have dark hair and skin. I mean, I was a brown baby, but the golden corkscrews really threw them for a loop.”

Marco hums curiously. “Where are you from?”

“That’s another big question.” With a contemplative sigh, Eren holds up his hands and starts rapid-fire naming states, more than Marco could hope to keep up with. He swears Eren’s named all of them by the time he drops his hands and smiles widely. “We moved around a lot while I was growing up. Not military or anything, my parents immigrated here from Morocco a few years before I was born. My dad just can’t ever hold down jobs, y’see. Jack of all trades, or whatever he likes to think. _I_ think he’s just hyperactive.”

“Interesting,” Marco mumbles, stuffing the last of the empty bags under the sink before he comes to sit in the chair beside Eren. “So you’ve pretty much worn out the US, huh?”

“I’d worn out the continental US by the time I was thirteen,” Eren laughs. “I kept badgering them to take me back to Morocco, see my roots or whatever, but I guess they never had the money. So the day I finished high school, I took my cash from working part-time at a gas station, bailed on graduation, and hopped right on a plane to Tangier.”

Marco remembers his high school graduation ceremony, surprisingly. Hot, boring, and not worth a second of the time it took. It was _the thing to do,_ though, so he’d done it anyway, and his family had been absurdly proud of him. He still remembers being unclear _why_ at the time, considering he’d already forgotten most of those four featureless, hormone-laden years. Like a puff of smoke the second that dumb square cap left his head.

Leaning forward slightly, Marco crosses his arms on the table and shifts his train of thought back to more interesting pastures. “How was it?”

“Well, I didn’t speak Arabic at the time,” Eren admits, scratching his head with a grin. “So I think I got ripped off a lot more than I should’ve. It was still awesome, though, I love Morocco. I try to go back every year, see if I can find anything there that I haven’t fallen in love with yet.”

“I would ask how many languages you speak,” Marco says, rubbing his nose bashfully, “But I think that might be another big question.”

Eren nods enthusiastically, wrapping his hands loosely around the chair’s slats. “You catch on quick. Yeah, I know enough in a lot of dialects to keep my ass from getting shot, but I think it’s impossible to ever really _speak_ a language you don’t grow up with. Like, in some areas of China, I’m conversationally fluent, but if I take a train a hundred miles west, I’m basically stuck with charades. Even between Beijing and Shanghai. _Totally_ different animals sometimes. It depends, really.”

“That’s...” Marco sighs slowly, trying not to curl in on himself. “That’s really impressive, Eren.”

“It’s just stuff you pick up if you have to,” Eren says, leaning forward with an encouraging smile. “A little studying beforehand for the vital basics, and then throw yourself right into it. Oh, and definitely hang out in the flocks of kids, because children are _merciless_ with making fun of your mistakes. Public ridicule’s the quickest way to learn to speak a language.”

Marco laughs softly, rubbing the back of his neck. 

There’s that feeling again. Eren’s talking about learning languages on the fly like it’s nothing at all, like it’s as easy as blinking. 

Like it’s something Marco could do too, no problem.

Eren makes the impossible seem completely accessible, like learning a language is just one step on the path to next adventure. It’s not like he’s reaching up and hauling the stars closer for Marco, either. He’s just... walking beside him, showing him already-existing paths Marco isn’t used to acknowledging, tracing out simple ways to the things he’s always been too intimidated to even contemplate. 

Even if Marco feels inadequate beside Eren, a little undercooked, the feeling never lasts long. At the end of the day, he’s still standing _beside_ him rather than lagging miles behind, and the view up close is dazzling. The incredible things Eren’s seen, the adventures he’s had, the secrets he keeps... 

Marco’s heart pounds against his ribs, but all those things look like they’re within his reach when Eren’s leaning toward him with that inviting smile. 

Like all he has to do is reach out.

Marco grips his own elbows with shaking hands and smiles back at Eren, before quietly inviting the brunette to forage through the spoils of his adventure to the corner store.

\--

That afternoon, Eren parks it on the floor in front of the couch and spreads a massive map of South America out across the coffee table, a chewed-on red pencil dangling from between his teeth as he smooths out the stubborn folds. Marco sits cross-legged on the couch behind him, careful not to hover too much for fear of being obnoxious. 

He’s unreasonably excited.

Maybe if he watches Eren, he can learn something too. If he listens to Eren as he thinks out loud, studies his methods, pays close attention to the details... maybe he can learn how to fly too.

“Why South America?” Marco asks softly, quietly enough that if Eren’s deep in the zone he can easily just ignore him. Eren doesn’t, though.

“Well,” Eren says, his words slurred slightly by the well-worn wood. “It was between this and Southeast Asia, but right now my Spanish isn’t too bad. Plus, it’s summer in the southern hemisphere. I’m gonna try to capitalize on that.” He turns and flashes Marco a toothy grin. “I’m pretty hot-blooded. Got summer in my bones.”

“Were you born during the summer?” 

“Nah, late March. Spring baby. The only thing I like about spring is the flowers, though, rain sucks a fat one.”

“Huh.” Marco raises his eyebrows and glances out the window, out at the melancholy grey downpour already sucking all the light out of the city. “How the hell did you end up in _Seattle?”_

Eren’s shoulders might stiffen slightly, but the tension is gone before Marco can be sure he didn’t imagine it, replaced instead with an easy shrug and a soft laugh. “I left my ukulele at Thomas’s house while I was away. Couldn’t just abandon my baby.” He turns again to grin up at Marco, the mangled pencil tangled in the curls behind his ear now. “Besides, my journals were there too, and one was out on loan. Say, what’d you think of it, anyway? Be honest.”

Marco sucks on his lips, blinking cautiously at Eren, who just tilts his head. “Honest?”

“Yep. Honest. Did you read it?”

“Oh yeah,” Marco laughs, running his hands through his hair. “I think I might’ve memorized it on accident.”

“Yeah? That good?”

Taking a deep, steadying breath, Marco raises his eyebrows at Eren and says, “I think I spent most of the time you were gone having extremely detailed daydreams about chucking it right at your head, to be entirely too honest.”

Marco doesn’t know what to expect from Eren at that level of honesty. Thinking back on it, maybe it was too forward, too harsh. But it’s the honest-to-god truth, as requested. At least four times a day, Marco had visualized the perfect vengeful fling. And now that he’s admitted it, Eren might be confused, or offended, or skeeved out. Damn, he might even bail on staying with Marco. _Damn._

Eren, once again, proves to be the absolute definition of unexpected when he throws his head back and _roars_ with laughter, clutching his stomach, his face flushing with the force of his mirth. His cackles echo around the little apartment, infectiously teasing Marco’s lips into a wide, pleased grin until laughter of his own boils up from the steady fire under his heart, the fire that burns bright in time to Eren’s liveliness.

“Th-thank god,” Eren wheezes after a while, wiping honest-to-god tears from the corners of his eyes. Still shaking with laughter, he manages, “I think the same damn thing when I read back over that one, I won’t lie. At least I still remember most of what I did there.” Running his hand through his shaggy bangs, Eren takes a deep breath to steady himself. “Truth be told, I was super nervous when I found out I brought that one instead of the one from Eastern Europe, ‘cause I know that one’s, like, infuriating...” 

Marco leans his chin in his palm, quirking a suspicious eyebrow. “You brought it on purpose?”

That tension flits across Eren’s shoulders again, and maybe the hidden shadow of a nervous swallow, but Eren brushes it away again and glances shyly up at Marco out of the corner of his eye. “Y-yeah... I was hopin’ I’d catch you, you seemed, like... _really_ interested. For real. I just stuffed it in my case and kinda forgot about it until I saw you again. I usually don’t do stuff like that, but...” He winces, then buries his face in his hands and scrubs them roughly over his flushed cheeks with an exasperated groan. “Ugh, that sounds so much weirder than it is.”

“Mm, I don’t think it’s weird,” Marco hums, and he _really_ means it. Eren stashing a journal to loan to Marco, hoping to start more conversations with him... the warmth of that gesture kind of bubbles up and then overflows from Marco’s chest, leaving him a little giddy. He’d wondered repeatedly if he had any kind of effect on Eren, if he’d left any kind of impression at all, and here they are.

It’s already more of an impression than Marco imagines he leaves on most of the people he sees every day.

Marco shakes himself back into reality and smiles kindly, absolutely reveling in the dark, flustered blush Eren’s trying to hide as he leans far over his enormous map. It’s adorable. Marco has half a mind to tell him so, but he bites his tongue on it at the last minute, instead electing to let Eren squirm a little more.

“So,” Eren rattles after a moment, clearing his throat of the lingering waver to his voice. “I’ve already island-hopped the entire Caribbean, so I’m thinking I’ll probably work a cruise liner or something down to Costa Rica. I have a very shady buddy in the industry. Free-ish transport, plus it’ll get me a bit of extra cash on the side. I’m a hot-ass cabin boy, let me tell you,” he says, grinning wolfishly over his shoulder, and suddenly it’s Marco’s turn to blush. As Eren wiggles his eyebrows rapidly, he leers, “Those old Texan ladies _love_ a scruffy brown guy. Mostly because they can’t tell the difference between a tramp in eyeliner and a cabana boy, but shit, I’ll be whatever their perfume-soaked cleavage cash wants me to be.”

Marco tries desperately to sink into the couch, covering his bright red face with his hands, but his shrill giggles probably more than give him away. Simultaneously amused and _extremely_ flustered, he gives himself a long moment to gather his composure before having to face that unfairly attractive grin again.

Eren’s mercifully turned back to his map, though, a sweet smile lingering on his face.

“Then I’ll head down through Panama, see some sights, you know. I might have to do some shady shit around Colombia, but that’s always the case. See what it looks like when I get there. Maybe their guns aren’t as big as the last time I was there.”

Not even bothering to hide his horror, Marco stares down at Eren, but the expression doesn’t faze him or his cheery grin. He continues tracing his way down along the western coast of South America, circling possible detours, things he wants to see, all the way through the mountains, between islands, until his pencil scratches to a halt over the broken, pointed tip at Cape Horn.

“Ushuaia’s the southernmost city in the world,” Eren murmurs, drawing a light circle around it. “Haven’t been there yet, that’ll be exciting.”

Eren sits back and contemplates the red trail marking out his rough path, breathing a satisfied sigh.

“I-is that it?” Marco asks, blinking between Eren and the map.

“Well, that’s the general idea,” Eren hums, stuffing the pencil behind his ear again. “I need to figure out timing, weather, politics, transportation, exchange rates, you know. All the boring shit. Figure out what’s feasible for me and what’s worth stopping for. Try to anticipate unplanned detours.”

“Wow.” Marco blinks.

It sounds... almost easy. Again. Certainly easier than the intimidating mess he’d imagined on his own.

As he stretches widely, Eren doesn’t bother stifling a yawn. He’s gotta be dead on his feet by now. He certainly looks exhausted when he stands and laces his fingers atop his head with another lengthy yawn, flattening his fluffy hair under his hands.

“Hey, so, I guess I’ll call around my contacts in the area, try to find somewhere by nightfall so I can get out of your hair,” Eren says carefully, biting his lip as he does. With as much space as Eren usually occupies, he looks strangely small right now, his toes curling restlessly into the carpet and his eyebrows raised slightly. He looks unsure, like he’s trying hard to be unintimidating, to give Marco space to agree with that plan.

As tiny as he is, he’s just giving Marco more space to disagree.

Scratching the back of his head, Marco tries to look and sound utterly casual as he suggests, “You can stay another night, if you want. Get some rest tonight. Use my awesome shower again?” He aims a tiny smile up at Eren, cautiously optimistic. “I really don’t mind.”

Eren looses a clearly-relieved sigh, his tired eyes sliding closed for a beat. “Thanks, man, I _really_ appreciate it. I can give you some cash, if you want?”

Marco purses his lips in thought. 

He doesn’t need cash, not in any capacity. Certainly not more than Eren needs it. He smiles and shakes his head after a moment. “No thanks, Eren. It’s fine, really. Like I said, I don’t mind at all.” His face warms in another soft blush, so Marco turns his head and scratches his cheek, trying and probably failing to hide it. “I actually really like your company, to be honest.”

For a moment, Eren just blinks, but then his face lights up in a brilliant, almost blinding grin, those pretty laughter lines coming out full force and sending Marco’s poor heart twisting into awestruck knots. “I like your company too, Marco. You’re... well, you’re cool.” He pauses, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his loose sweats. “I really feel bad freeloading, though, is there anything I can do to repay you?”

Damn skippy, Marco doesn’t say, but he’s sure the smile on his face says it for him. “Let me read another of your journals? If they’re too personal, it’s fine, I just...” Laughing softly, Marco runs a hand through his hair with a teasing grin. “I’m curious about how infuriating the rest of them are.”

Eren barks a laugh, gesturing widely at the pile on the table. “Have at them, man, my diary’s your diary. And I don’t _think_ the rest of them are as aggravating. Well, not in terms of slow news days, at least.” Marco raises his eyebrows, mildly concerned, but Eren waves his hand. “You should find the eastern Europe one, man, it is a riot.”

Marco feels a vague twinge of anticipatory dread settle into his stomach. He’s not entirely sure how he feels about Eren’s sense of ‘riot’ just yet. He nods anyway, though, and stands to stretch his legs out.

“Alright, well,” Marco sighs, waving his hands around at the thoroughly occupied living room. “Hold your position, then. I’ll go ahead and let you sleep.”

“Thanks again, Marco,” Eren murmurs, his voice softer than Marco’s heard it yet. His gaze softens too, before it falls to the carpet, his lip shyly caught between his teeth again.

“Of course,” he replies, but his voice sounds more vulnerable than anything else to him, a little too open even for the comfortable air between them. He slides over to the pile of journals and just scoops up the whole thing, his hands a little too sweaty to fuss with the knot when that gentle voice is still ringing in his ears. “U-uh, yep. Good night, Eren.”

“Night, Marco.”

With a few minutes, Marco can hear soft snores from the dark living room, but they’re just rhythmic background noise as he trails his fingers over the unwrapped collection of tall tales now spread out across his bed.

More adventures, possibly more informative than Mongolia. More of Eren’s dry humor and terrible legal choices, more fleeting tastes of the wild, all arranged in a neat, curved line before him like a trail of breadcrumbs waiting to be followed before they disappear.

Marco pauses to take a deep, steadying breath, his eyes sliding contently closed at the soft scent of ink and paper and a million other hidden things slowly surrounding him.

Maybe he can stall for time tomorrow, too. Maybe Eren will stay another day, and then another, always full of stories and answers and pretty smiles and flustered pouts. Maybe he can convince Eren to not make those calls at all, and instead stay here to do his planning, simultaneously breathing vibrant life into Marco’s still, dull apartment.

Maybe, if he’s _really_ lucky, Eren will want to stay too. For himself, not because Marco asked him to.

Maybe Marco can finally learn how to break out of the cage Seattle has become, armed with the bravery and encouragement Eren extends to him with every incredible journey.

Maybe all those terrifying things that sound so simple sliding between Eren’s lips are really, honestly that easy.

Marco stares up at his ceiling, soothed by Eren’s steady, quiet breath, and he finds himself holding tight to the exhilarating fire roaring within the cave of his chest. That fire had always been there in his youth, but at some point it had slowly burned down to embers as the stagnant years trickled by, growing colder and darker without Marco noticing at all. Blissfully unaware. That flame sat lifeless inside of him for ages until Eren crash-landed into his life, and the explosive force of his strange magic reignited those smoking ashes in a sudden, blazing inferno aching to be set free.

He’s had a taste, now. The vibrant, fleeting sparks struck by their shared company, by the haphazard recollection of New Zealand, by the distressing holes littered throughout Mongolia and Tibet. They’re enough to keep his own fire alive for now. Not too much, not too little. Just enticing enough.

Idle fingers trace slow circles over the smooth red cover of the journal closest to him.

How long will these effervescent flashes of Eren’s blazing wilderness last until Marco once again succumbs to the stinging burn of needing more?


	3. Strangeness and Charm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco probably ought to figure out exactly where the thin line between 'impulsive ass' and 'degenerate criminal' lies, but as all things with Eren invariably do, this too shall pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://avoidingavoidance.tumblr.com)

Even though Marco has an entire encyclopedia of Eren’s fables from across the globe spread out before him, more than a dozen little journals calling out to the blank slate of his endless curiosity, he sets a loose limit for himself. Just eastern Europe for now. Just the one.

He knows that if he lets himself run wild, he’ll devour every page of every journal instead of sleeping, and as enticing as that sounds, he wants to be at least partially coherent when he invariably has a pile of questions for Eren in the morning. He wants to take his time with these ones if they’ll allow it, to absorb them and reread them and hunt for all the tiny little details, every stray fleck of ink hidden in the binding.

It does not escape him that he felt somewhat similar before opening the first journal. Pounding heart and all. This time, though, he’s being slightly more cautious, a bit more academic in his approach even with the loose reassurance that these stories are less spotty. 

He hopes to god Eren isn’t bluffing.

As used to disappointment as Marco is, he doesn’t think he could handle another Mongolia. If he has to stare down another forty-day black hole prefaced with the reverent scrawl, _‘I am never leaving this place,’_ he thinks he might actually explode. 

So, as he sorts Eren’s adventures into neat, vaguely geographical piles on his bed, Marco keeps Mongolia in mind. However, he also keeps in mind that Eren has every right to just stop and _live_ for a while, and that he has absolutely no obligation to anyone under any sun to keep a coherent, logical account of his journeys. He keeps in mind that if the reimagined skeleton of Eren’s experiences suddenly falls to pieces, the cure is camped out on the couch not fifteen feet away, and this time Marco won’t have to pray for patience for months on end until his questions can be answered. 

Taking Eren’s advice, he fishes out five books haphazardly labeled with different parts of Europe, each easily as overstuffed and well-worn as the last, with one particularly wrinkled tome still reeking distinctly of beer and seawater. The specific trip Eren had recommended appears to be bound in a huge, heavy leather journal held tightly closed with a few fat rubber bands, a peeling sticker running down the rounded spine reading _‘Eastern Europe 2011.’_

When he wrangles the rubber bands off, the book’s thick cover springs open and a genuinely alarming amount of intensely colorful paper explodes at him from between the pages. Upon closer inspection, it looks like it might be money, but he can’t even begin to tell where it’s from. Just that there’s a lot of it.

Marco stares down at the technicolor fortune strewn across his lap, eyebrows raised in shock. The journal apparently isn’t done unloading, though, as something else comes unstuck and slides out onto the mess of cash. 

Paling slightly, Marco carefully gathers up the pile of money and uses an outrageously blue banknote to pick up what looks an awful lot like a little bag of cocaine. 

He hasn’t even officially opened the damn book and he’s already terrified.

\--

This journal takes several hours longer for Marco to get through, both because the journey had been much longer and because Eren had written significantly more detailed accounts of his activities across eleven different countries.

In this case, Eren’s thoroughness seems fairly reasonable, given that he probably had plenty of time to kill during his stays in _fourteen different prisons._

Honestly, Marco’s shocked that Eren isn’t fucking _dead._ Just a little roughed up, and also banned from nearly every country he’d visited on that trip for a variety of reasons, from outright criminal activity to suspected terrorism. Marco reads the journal as carefully as his overwhelmed brain can handle, pausing frequently to stare at the wall and let his blood pressure fall back into normal human ranges, but his head is still spinning when he finally reaches the end. 

In stark, painful contrast to Mongolia, eastern Europe is a _lot_ to take in. Almost too much. It’ll probably take a few reads to really absorb everything, if Marco can even stomach that screaming thrill ride again. Particularly the tail end of the trip, the details of which are a weird mix of mind-blowing and nausea-inducing.

It seems like the only reason Eren isn’t still rotting in a damp Russian jail cell is because he has a contact of some kind in the American embassy, a man who must be ruthless in his negotiation and who regularly works some kind of terrifying bargaining magic to spring Eren out of trouble. Based on the frequency with which this Levi dude pops up to save his ass, Marco’s willing to bet he’s basically Eren’s personal case worker. Eren usually writes about him more like he’s his dad or something, though.

As Marco had feared, the little baggy is indeed filled with cocaine, a souvenir of some kind from Ukraine, along with the cash. After his stint in a Russian jail in Belgorod, Eren wrote several action-packed pages explaining the situation. Apparently, a ‘miscommunication’ and some mild panic had led to him agreeing to mule cocaine into Russia, which went over about as well as one might imagine.

While Ukraine and Russia definitely win the award for ‘most guns pointed directly at Eren’s head,’ the whole of his trip through eastern Europe is a variety of kinds of heart-pounding. As cute as that boy is, he appears to be a literal magnet for unintentional criminal activity, which he usually seems to find amusing once he’s done being intimidated and harassed and occasionally beaten by thugs and government officials. If this is his definition of a riot, Marco has honest fears about what the rest of the journals might contain.

It’s past midnight when Marco stuffs the mess of Ukrainian hryvnia and the bag of coke back where they came from, more than ready to throw in the towel for tonight. His head aches with the substantial effort it takes to even begin sorting through Eren’s misadventures, and this time, he’s significantly more overwhelmed than he is tempted. Might have something to do with the array of vividly-described prison cells now floating through his overstuffed skull.

When Marco finally falls asleep, he dreams thankfully of the peace and quiet of the enormous Mongolian sky, although the usual fluffy white clouds gracing endless blue seem to take the form of suspicious-looking drug pouches.

\--

“Eren, I’m sorry,” Marco murmurs the next morning, perched in his armchair and rubbing the back of his neck slowly. Eren, who had already been awake and working at the coffee table when Marco shuffled into the living room, peers up at him from a messy list of South American currencies. “But I really have to ask... are you, um, doing any drugs?”

Eren raises his thick eyebrows in surprise, before he puts two and two together and sighs loudly. “Ohhh, you found Ukraine, huh.”

“Um, yes.” Marco chews on his thumbnail and glances nervously at his guest, who shuffles around to face him properly. “There were some... s-souvenirs?” Brow furrowing, Eren tilts his head in question. “Stuffed between the pages. Mostly cash and, uh. Some cocaine. I think.”

“Shit, really? I wondered where all that cash ended up...” Eren runs his hand through his messy bangs, frowning at the carpet between them. “Wait, there was still _coke_ in there?”

Marco nods. “Yeah. A little bag.”

“How the hell did I get that into the States?” Eren muses aloud, looking mildly impressed for a beat before he shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. No, I’m not, and that’s not mine. Well, not really. I guess it slipped past the officials or something.” He pauses, chewing nervously on his lip and blinking up at Marco through his bangs. “S-sorry, Marco. That, uh, really wasn’t my intention. I didn’t even know that shit was in there. You can flush the coke, I did it once in the Donbas and it was a fucking shitshow.”

“O-okay.” As much as Marco tries to keep his face neutral, he has this sinking feeling that Eren can still sense his trepidation, especially given the tension now hovering thick in their usually comfortable airspace.

Exhaling slowly, Eren runs his hands down his face, then climbs up onto the couch closer to Marco so he can give him an imploring look. “Marco, I know how bad this must look, and if you want me to book it right now, I can _totally_ respect that. And I would do it. I’m gonna be honest with you, I’m still banned from, like, ninety percent of Europe right now.” 

Marco’s eyebrows shoot into his hair, his shoulders unconsciously tensing as he leans back into his chair. Eren lets him have the space, slowly folding his own knees into his chest and crossing his arms atop them, once again compressing his enormous presence into an unintimidating fraction of his usual self.

“Um,” Marco wheezes, crossing his arms tightly. 

Before he can find the words to voice any of his umpteen questions or concerns, Eren glances back up at him and mumbles, “I’m not an addict, which is totally something an addict would say, I know. If you want me to, I will make a phone call and get a piss test at the consulate. Gladly. I’m clean.” He pauses to dig his hands through his hair again, his anxiety obvious in the way he can’t stop fidgeting. “Marco, the reason I asked you to read that one in particular is because that’s the trip that makes me look like a fucking degenerate criminal con man on paper, and I wanted to get that out of the way sooner rather than later.”

“O-oh.”

For a long moment, Eren watches Marco struggle with his words, his own vivid eyes wide and restless. Almost... frightened. When Marco can’t seem to untangle his tongue, Eren sighs again, curling in on himself even more and lowering his gaze to the carpet.

“I don’t actually know what I thought I was doing,” Eren murmurs, pulling the sleeves of his loose hoodie down over his shaking hands. “I guess... maybe I just wanted to show you the worst of it, give you a chance to run screaming or whatever.” He breathes a sad little laugh and shakes his head, then continues, “It totally makes sense that you’d wanna run screaming, I don’t know why I expected anything else. Guess I just forgot how bad it really sounds, or something. Half of the shit I got arrested for in Europe, I didn’t even _mean._ And I didn’t kill anyone or anything. I just have this bad habit of getting myself into trouble.”

A heavy beat passes before Eren chuckles humorlessly, burying his face in his hands. “I am not making this better.” With a huff, the brunette stands, his slouched posture absolutely defeated. He moves to crouch beside his bags, digging out a beat-up old flip phone, and as he opens it and starts tapping away, he sniffs quietly and frowns down at the tiny screen. “I’ll start calling around. Sorry. I just, uh.” He pauses, digging the heel of his hand into his eye agitatedly. “Shit, I don’t even know. Sorry.”

Marco watches Eren condense like a dying sun, slowly curling into a tiny little ball between his huge backpacks as he starts sending texts.

He’s not entirely sure why he asks, but the question’s been floated before he can think twice about it.

“Eren, are you okay?”

Eren freezes, sucking in a sharp breath, before he shoots Marco a few quick, nervous glances out of the corner of his eye. “S-sure. Yeah. Sorry, uh, I just kinda fucked things up. I know I’m not always great at explaining why I do half the shit I do. I totally get why you’re freaked out.”

Tilting his head slightly, Marco squints at the fidgety brunette. “Why do you think you fucked things up?”

Shrugging tensely, Eren shifts to sit on his bag, blinking forlornly at his host. “I just handed you like a thousand reasons to never ever trust me, and I can’t give you a single solid reason why you should ignore them. I don’t know where I was going with that plan, but I didn’t exactly put my best foot forward, you know? Now you think I’m some kind of criminal, and I guess I forgot that that’s _exactly_ what I am.” Eren pauses to breathe a shuddering sigh, shrinking further into his hoodie as his eyes fall back to his battered phone. “Anyone in their right mind would kick me out.”

“Is that why Thomas asked you to leave?”

With a soft snort, Eren shakes his head. “Nah, he never wanted to read my shit. Barely even wanted to hear any stories beyond whatever he could use to impress people.” A weak smile crosses the brunette’s face as he scratches his head and squints one eye up at Marco. “Thomas kicked me out because he didn’t want his girlfriend figuring out that he fucked me a few times.”

Marco’s eyebrows shoot up. “W-wait—”

“Yep,” Eren laughs, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I guess he was scared she’d smell the gay in the room or something. I dunno. Didn’t really stop to ask questions, I know when I’m not wanted, you know?”

Frowning at his hands, Marco mulls that over for a minute, somehow quelling the urge to call Thomas some really unpleasant names. In the meantime, Eren ticks away at his phone, still curled into himself atop his bag like he’s afraid to take up any more of Marco’s space than he absolutely has to.

The whole thing with eastern Europe is obviously much more than Marco had bargained for in his search for excitement, and that’s just _one trip._ That sobering thought is about enough to douse his growing wanderlust, as improbable as that sounds. With the fire scared back down to glowing embers and no pressing need to learn anything about Eren’s trade, Marco should totally be on board with him finding somewhere else to stay. 

Still, he just can’t shake the already-formed impression that he has of Eren, even though by all rights he should probably be assuming that Eren could fuck him over at any time. Dude’s an actual criminal. In most circles, that’s good enough reason to worry that Eren’s going to rip him off. Maybe his cuteness is just an act to get him from place to place, a con to guarantee him a place to sleep or a sucker to take advantage of.

Given the towering evidence against Eren, Marco suddenly understands the brunette’s obvious frustration with himself. On paper, he’s a total scumbag.

On paper.

Blinking up at Eren, Marco watches him bury his nose into the crook of his elbow as his thumb moves across the noisy keys of his phone.

Marco read the journal. He knows exactly how Eren got himself into trouble all through eastern Europe. Even if he only has Eren’s word to go by, Eren’s word basically just says that he’s wildly impulsive. Not terribly dangerous.

With a crooked smile, Marco shifts and crawls across the couch, kneeling on the cushion closest to Eren’s little luggage island.

“Hey,” he murmurs, leaning closer to catch Eren’s dodgy attention.

“Y-yeah?”

Pursing his lips in thought, Marco rests his chin in his hand and says, “So you’re a big-time outlaw.”

“Something like that, maybe,” Eren wheezes, moving to chew on the cracked corner of his phone’s bright screen.

Marco considers Eren for a moment longer, thinking over every interaction they’ve had so far, every emotion he’s felt toward the little brunette in their brief friendship. He figures logically that a good con man probably leaves his victims no reason to ever suspect that there’s anything amiss. The mask is always on, so to speak.

Even so...

“Eren, can I trust you?”

Eren blinks widely at Marco, searching his serious gaze, before he nods cautiously and breathes, “Y-yes.”

“Good.” Marco stands and stretches, meandering around the couch and into the kitchen. “Then put your phone down and tell me how you like your eggs.”

Marco hums as he casually sets to making them a late, lazy breakfast, acutely aware of Eren’s intense eyes following his every move. Eren shuffles over after a few quiet minutes, hovering at the end of the counter and mumbling something about not having a preference, his hands still fisted in the sleeves of his hoodie. He keeps shifting restlessly until Marco gives him a wide, kind smile and hands him a fork.

It takes a good while and some gentle coaxing, like tempting a scared animal out of hiding, but Eren eventually starts laughing again. By late afternoon he’s back to telling stories as they’re requested, although he’s still overly cautious in how he occupies Marco’s space.

When the sky starts to darken again, Eren takes to fidgeting and glancing at his phone where it’s still resting on the corner of the coffee table. He’d gotten a few texts over the course of the day, but Marco had more than encouraged him to ignore them, distracting him easily with questions about his travels. Now that the sun’s starting to set somewhere behind thick grey rainclouds, though, he’s obviously nervous again. 

Eren licks his lips and sits up, reaching for his phone as he mumbles, “I should really, uh.”

“Hey, Eren,” Marco interrupts.

“Y-yeah?”

“You said I can trust you, right?”

Blinking rapidly, Eren nods somewhat dazedly, his hand frozen in midair halfway to his phone.

“Because even though you’re a terrible troublemaker,” Marco continues, unable to suppress a wide smile. “You’re a good guy, right?” Eren nods again, swallowing heavily. Humming quietly, Marco stares out the window for a minute, honestly trying one last time to find a good reason to kick Eren out. Other than the mountain of suspicion, that is.

After a long pause, Marco looks back over at Eren and shrugs slightly. “Why don’t you just stay here?”

Eren’s eyes widen almost comically, his mouth falling open, before he finds his composure and clears his throat a few times. “Marco, I couldn’t inconvenience you like that.”

“What if it’s not an inconvenience?” Marco chews on one of his nails and tilts his head. “It’d sure be inconvenient if you robbed me or stole my identity or something, but you just said I can trust you, so.”

“I-I wouldn’t rob you,” Eren laughs weakly, tucking his knees into his chest again. “Can’t even carry all my own shit, let alone jacking some of yours too.”

“Sounds good,” Marco hums, relaxing back into the couch with a soft smile. “If you don’t have somewhere you’d rather be, you’re welcome to stay here until you leave for South America.”

As his teeth catch his chapped lip, Eren blinks down at the couch between them, fidgeting with the fraying sleeves of his hoodie. “I don’t, um. It sounds super weird to say I don’t have anywhere else I’d rather be, but that’s, uh. Kinda how it is.” Eren glances quickly at Marco, then back at the upholstery. “You definitely talk to me more than pretty much anyone I stay with. It’s, uh. It’s nice.”

“Then stay,” Marco says simply, shrugging again. “I like talking to you. Can’t say I know many international terrorist drug mules.”

Eren snorts loudly, smiling despite himself as he shakes his head. “Straight up guardian angel,” he mumbles. Running a hand through his hair, he squints shyly at Marco and bites his lip again, then asks, “Why do you trust me so much?”

Marco hums softly before replying. “You said I could. I’m taking your word for it.” He shoots Eren a playful grin and teases, “You weren’t lying, were you?”

 _“No,_ nonono,” Eren sputters, waving his hands between them. “No, I wasn’t lying. I’m a shit liar. ‘S why I made such a damn terrible mule.”

“Clearly,” Marco chuckles.

Eren fidgets some more in the silence that falls between them, still flicking his gaze between Marco’s calm smile and various pieces of furniture, before he finally lets out a tense breath and slumps back into the cushions. “You can change your mind whenever, I won’t ask any questions,” he says, stuffing his restless hands into the gap between his thighs and his stomach. “And I’ll stay out of your way and all.”

Marco shakes his head, sitting up to lean closer to Eren. “You’re gonna be here for a few months, right? Please just make yourself at home, I mean it. As long as I can trust you, I won’t kick you out. Promise.”

“You don’t gotta promise me,” Eren mumbles, finally looking right at Marco and holding his gaze. “If anything, I should be the one promising you can trust me.”

Shrugging lazily, Marco waves a hand between them. “You already did, so don’t worry about it, okay?”

“... O-okay.”

“Then it’s settled,” Marco sighs, looking rather pleased. “I am harboring a terrorist kingpin while he plans his next big conquest.”

Eren snorts softly, leaning his head against the back of the couch with a small smile. “You got a big imagination, you know that?”

“You have no idea,” Marco laughs. He stands and moves into the kitchen to pour them some wine, humming to himself as he goes, and once again he can feel Eren’s eyes on him the whole way. This time, though, the brunette’s gaze seems to have a softer edge to it, less frightened than before. Less skittish, less like he’s waiting for Marco to slap him with an eviction notice or something. When Marco returns and hands him a glass, Eren nods his thanks, his lips still quirked in that same soft smile.

That evening, Marco expresses his genuine despair at how extremely out of the loop Eren is on American pop culture, and Eren gladly settles in for his crash education at the hands of YouTube, Netflix, and Marco’s bubbly enthusiasm.

\--

Marco fully intends to let Eren have free run of the apartment while he’s at work the next day, but somehow Eren’s up before him again, and he’s already dressed and packing up his carefully-tuned ukulele before Marco’s even opened his eyes all the way.

“You don’t have to wake up so early, you know,” Marco mumbles, staring blearily over a hot cup of coffee. “I don’t have a spare key, but you could always just lock the bottom lock behind you if you wanna sleep in some before you go out.”

Eren shrugs and pats his pockets, checking to make sure he has everything before he beams up at Marco. “Sometimes the morning rush works out in my favor. Besides, I was already up anyway, no use laying around all day.”

Tilting his head curiously, Marco runs his finger idly around the rim of his mug while Eren digs around for his beanie. “You’re an early bird, huh?”

“Mm, sometimes,” Eren hums as he jams his hat on over his disheveled hair. “To be honest, I usually don’t sleep so hot in the city. Noisy, you know.”

Marco blinks slowly and nods, sipping his too-hot coffee. He hasn’t ever really noticed the noise, but he imagines it must be a racket compared to the quiet wild. “Have you tried earplugs?”

“Nah, the idea kinda skeeves me out.” Eren laces his fingers over the nape of his neck and laughs, shrugging idly. “I’ll make it, don’t worry about me. Hey, when do you get off work?”

“Five-ish.” Marco sets his mug down on the counter and resigns himself to his fate, heading back into the bedroom to change for work. “I usually make it back from the office around five-thirty, six o’clock,” he continues, raising his voice so Eren can hear him. “Where are you thinking of going?”

“Dunno yet. Might hit up our park, it’s pretty much always busy there.”

 _Our_ park. Marco smiles crookedly as he buttons his shirt on autopilot, allowing himself a long, cheesy moment to bask in those words before he asks, “Do you want me to pick you up there when I leave? We can come back together if you want.”

“Would that be a giant pain in your ass?” Eren pokes his head into the bedroom just as Marco pulls his slacks up, politely averting his gaze. “Haven’t quite gotten the route down yet.”

“It’s no problem,” Marco assures, fastening his belt before he grabs his tie and ushers Eren back into the main room. “You’re seriously gonna busk all day?”

Eren cocks a teasing grin up at Marco and leans cheekily toward him. “You’re seriously gonna turn shit off and back on again all day?”

Rolling his eyes, Marco plants his hand right over that charming face and heads back over to his coffee. “Alright, sassy. Touché.” 

“Hey, uh,” Eren murmurs shyly, a world apart from his ribbing just a moment before. “Thanks again, Marco. I have no idea how I’m gonna repay you, but I’ll figure it out.”

Blinking over the rim of his mug, Marco swallows slowly, then shoots Eren a warm smile. “Just promise not to bring me back any illicit drugs from South America and I’ll call it even.”

For a brief moment, Eren looks well and truly stunned, his eyes wide and his lips parted slightly. He shakes it off with a soft laugh, though, and rubs the back of his neck with a crooked grin. “No party favors, huh... I dunno, man, Costa Rica’s a wild place. I will try my best.”

Marco snorts quietly, but he’s still pretty stuck on Eren’s first reaction. Had he gone too far in his teasing? Eren doesn’t really look off-put or offended. If anything, he seems even cheerier, humming loudly as he retrieves his ukulele case from the couch. Maybe he’s imagining it, but Marco thinks there might be some kind of pep in Eren’s step, too.

He doesn’t quite have the balls to ask about it, even though it’s gonna drive him nuts. Is Eren just not used to people joking with him?

They head out before Marco figures that expression out, and even parking his butt at his desk isn’t quite enough to keep him from turning it over and over in his mind.

\--

The answer hits him like lightning a few hours later, when he’s shuffling around on his hands and knees under a desk and trying to figure out what the hell cute accounting guy unplugged this time.

Marco forgets where he is for a moment and bolts upright. Or rather, as upright as he can get before he cracks his skull against the underside of the desk with a fairly gruesome _thwack._ Cute accounting guy has the decency to stop fucking him with his eyes and ask if he’s okay, but Marco barely hears him. Between his sudden realization and a possible concussion, his aching head is swimming, so he leans his forehead against the floor and tries to settle himself.

Eren hadn’t planned on coming back to Seattle after his trip.

Not yet, anyway. Marco hasn’t seen him make any return plans so far, but that doesn’t mean much. It’s not like his plans are terribly far along at this point.

Sure, the surprise written across Eren’s face could have meant anything. Surprise that Marco would have the balls to rib him about muling controlled substances, surprise that Marco doesn’t want any kind of repayment beyond a half-joking promise, surprise that Marco had thought he’d come back...

Or maybe surprise that Marco would even want him to come back at all.

He had selfishly assumed that Eren would be coming right back to his couch after backpacking South America. It makes some sense that he would, but once Marco puts his own damn yearning aside, it kind of makes more sense that he wouldn’t. What’s Seattle to a traveler? It’s not like it’s _close_ to anything. Alaska, maybe. No, as he sees it, Seattle is a layover at best. Shit, maybe it was just a long layover when they first met. There’s no way he could know without asking.

Cute accounting guy is starting to sound somewhat frantic, Marco realizes, so he lifts his head from the rough carpet and crawls out from under the desk with a groan. 

“Are you okay?” the skinny blonde asks, kneeling in front of him to get a closer look. “Should I take you to the hospital? Shit, man, I’m sorry—”

“No, no,” Marco wheezes, shooting him a pained smile. “You’re fine, I just, um. I realized I forgot something, it’s stupid.”

“Dude, I read this article on traumatic brain injury, I really think you might wanna get that checked out.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, thanks.” Sighing slowly, still cradling the back of his head, Marco blinks up at the guy with a slightly more human smile. “It’s Jean, right? Your name?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Thanks for your concern, Jean,” he mumbles, leaning back against the side of Jean’s desk. “Can I trust you to, uh, plug your thing back in?”

Jean’s face erupts in a genuinely hilarious flush as he grimaces at the floor and nods sheepishly, running a hand through his bleached undercut. He really is cute, even if he’s absurdly transparent in his continuing efforts to check out Marco’s ass. Marco laughs softly, patting the blonde’s shoulder amiably, before he hauls himself to his feet and makes his sluggish way back to his own desk.

He has to ask. He’s not gonna be able to sleep at night until he knows whether or not he’ll ever see Eren again after South America.

Marco leans his chin in his hand, still rubbing his head in an attempt to soothe the raging migraine he can feel looming, and tries to think of a subtle way to ask. Something that won’t seem like he’s twisting Eren’s arm. He wants Eren to come back because _he_ wants to, because he trusts Marco to be there for him, not just because Marco selfishly asked him to.

He wants Eren to want him too.

His heart twists painfully in his chest thinking about Eren in this new light, shining like the sun to cover up the fact that he might be the loneliest man alive. A vibrant, friendly, funny person with _contacts_ instead of friends, with a series of stiff couches to surf instead of a home to stay in.

Now that the pieces are starting to come together, Marco wonders how the hell he missed it, how he managed to completely gloss over the symptoms of Eren’s uncertainty. If he’s right, that is. But it makes more sense the more he thinks about it; Eren’s so easily spooked, so afraid to settle into stability, so quick to abandon ship if he starts feeling unwelcome. He tries to be subtle, but Marco knows he packs up every damn night, ready to go at a moment’s notice. 

It seems like he’s just always been uprooted, even while he was growing up. A tumbleweed or something, constantly drifting from couch to couch with no real anchor to speak of. A tramp. And assholes like Thomas who fuck him and chuck him probably don’t help that feeling at all. 

Marco has to wonder if Eren’s ever really had someone to come home to since he started traveling, or if his returns to the States have always just been some long, overcooked layover between adventures.

The headache sets in something fierce right around lunch, so Marco abuses his power just this once and books one of the conference rooms for ‘system updates.’ Meaning he turns the lights off, locks the door, and hopes to god he took enough ibuprofen as he sprawls across a few cushy chairs.

Marco knows he’s been scared back into his secure Seattle nest for now, but even without Eren sitting right in front of him being all attractive and vulnerable, he still finds himself absurdly drawn to him. Not just his diverse life experience and his unfaltering encouragement, but to the man himself. To the skittish little animal he becomes when he’s bracing himself for rejection, to the suncatcher grin he can’t hold back when Marco surprises him with his acceptance. 

If nothing else, Marco is an optimist. Probably to a fault. He wants so badly to believe that Eren will want to come back to him, laden with a new adventure to share over wine and cheap snacks. Sitting comfortably in his cozy little life, Marco wants to believe that he can be Eren’s roots. Something to look forward to, a reason to come home again. A friend, a _real_ one. A safe place.

There’s still time left before Eren ships off. Marco has time to snoop around his travel plans for a return setup, if he even plans that kind of thing beforehand. There’s still time to figure out how Eren feels about him, and maybe to ask if he’d like to come back to Seattle, even if it’s just for coffee on a long layover.

\--

Eren picks up the route back to Marco’s apartment fairly quickly, but he makes enough money busking in their bustling park that he doesn’t really see a good reason to go anywhere else, so they settle wordlessly into the easy rhythm of leaving together in the morning and walking home together in the evening. On Wednesdays, they crowd under Marco’s little umbrella and eat hot dogs, laughing warmly despite the grey wintery gloom all around them.

The strange, therapeutic spell Eren’s presence casts on Marco has yet to lose its edge, too. That nagging internal timekeeper ends up locked away more often than not now, and the effect starts bleeding out from their amiable evenings and into the hours that they’re not together as well. It’s mildly distracting, but Marco’s never been less strung-out in his entire adult life.

He never does end up asking about that day in his kitchen. It kind of stops mattering after a while anyway, once he starts really paying attention. 

As he watches and listens, he becomes more and more confident that he’s right about Eren, at least in terms of his loneliness and his caution and his jumpiness. He’s also confident that Eren is hitting on him fairly regularly, especially once he figures out that Marco’s unabashedly gay, but fuck it. As long as Marco exercises some self-control, it’s harmless. May as well enjoy it while he can.

Surprisingly, Marco isn’t the only one so affected. The restlessness plaguing Eren’s bones seems to peter out after a while, as they wear tracks into their familiar routine. He fidgets less and spreads out more, and he cracks more jokes and teases more boldly, and once or twice he even perches on the edge of Marco’s bed late into the night and talks about his journals with him.

After about two weeks, Eren grows enough self-confidence to take a few days off here and there, leaving him more time to plan and research and write songs while Marco’s at work. He’s always more than happy to fill Marco in on any new and interesting details of his grand master plan or to test his new songs out on him, and Marco finds himself quickly growing more and more accustomed to Eren’s warm, constant presence. Attached, even. 

He knows Eren’s inevitable departure is gonna hurt like a bitch, but he’s okay with it for now if it means late evenings spent in the low light of his living room, listening to that sweet voice singing him songs about the starlight glow of the midnight tide.

\--

One evening toward the end of December, Marco drags himself into the apartment drenched to the bone and shivering from the frigid winter rain. As has become routine on his days off, Eren’s already midway through cooking some fantastic-smelling dinner, and he grins over his shoulder while Marco shrugs out of his waterlogged coat. 

“Damn, you fall into Puget Sound or something?” he jokes, sticking his tongue out between his teeth. Marco rolls his eyes, shuffling right into Eren’s space before shaking out his soaked hair like a wet dog, which earns him a giggly sort of sputter.

“It’s _pissing_ outside,” he grumbles, leaning his hip against the counter next to Eren and rolling up the damp sleeves of his button-down. “You made a good call staying in today.”

“Yeah, well, I made out like a damn bandit earlier this week, so I figured I earned a day of dry socks.”

Eren whistles some song Marco got stuck in his head and bustles around the kitchen, locks of his disheveled hair now curling all around his ears where they’re starting to escape from the rubber band attempting to keep them under control.

“Your hair’s getting pretty long, yeah?” Marco observes, hopping up to sit comfortably on the counter. “You usually keep it this long?”

“Ugh, _no,_ ” Eren groans, raking his fingers through his uncooperative bangs. “This is _way_ longer than I deem acceptable. It’s making me crazy.”

“Why don’t you go get it cut?” Marco leans back against the cabinet and crosses his arms lazily. “Since you’re a _rich_ outlaw now.”

“No thanks,” Eren laughs. He turns the stove off and sets to spooning some kind of dangerously colorful curry over piles of rice on the plates beside him. “I am not a fan of strangers hanging around my neck with sharp objects.”

“Makes sense,” Marco hums, taking his plate when it’s offered. He shifts his knees apart to pull the silverware drawer out between his legs, deftly tossing Eren a fork before he slams it shut again. Eren hops up to sit on the island across from him, barely even blowing the steam off his food before he starts shoveling it into his mouth.

“Mm,” he manages after a few minutes, pausing to swallow loudly. “Good point, though. You got any scissors?”

Marco raises his eyebrows, but he finishes chewing like a reasonable adult before responding. “Probably, why?”

“Can you cut my hair?” Eren grins widely and kicks his dangling feet. “I gotta get it off my neck or I’m gonna lose it.”

“You want _me_ to cut your hair?”

“Yeah, if it’s not a bother.” Eren pokes at his rice with his fork for a moment. “I trust you around my neck, I think.”

“Ooh, I don’t know about that,” Marco laughs, taking another bite of Eren’s ridiculously delicious curry. Whatever sort of curry it might be. Probably not pig or pig byproducts. “I usually just use a trimmer to keep the afro in check, and my mom still cuts my bangs for me. I don’t know how I’d do with scissors.”

Eren hums, then shrugs. “Trimmer’s fine. I really don’t give a shit, I just want to be able to _see_ again.”

Marco nods, watching Eren inhale another sizable chunk of his food without really chewing. How he doesn’t choke is a mystery. “I dunno, man, unless you want a buzz cut I should probably watch some YouTube videos or something first.”

“You ‘n your damn YouTube,” Eren blurts, more than a little muffled by an enormous mouthful of curry. Marco just snorts at him as he gulps it down. “Nah, dude, I trust you. Just do it. You got this.”

“Eren, I haven’t even _touched_ a pair of scissors in, like, a year.”

“If you fuck it up, I’ll take the crew cut. How’s that?” Marco raises a skeptical eyebrow, wrinkling his nose at the idea. He likes Eren’s hair. It’d be a real shame to just buzz it all off. He’d probably look funny, too, Eren’s definitely more of a shaggy-haired sort of charmer. “Hair grows back, you big baby,” Eren laughs, hopping down off his perch to start on the dishes.

“Yeah, but I’ve still gotta look at you for the next month or so. If I’m forced to face down the consequences of my terrible mistakes for a month straight, I might have to cry myself to sleep every night.”

“I’ll wear a paper bag over my head, how’s that sound?” Eren grins up at Marco, leaning toward him as he vigorously scrubs the pot.

“Can I draw a face on it?”

“You have to give me a really good moustache if you do. Can’t grow one of my own.”

Marco blinks at Eren, chewing idly on the tips of his fork. “Wait, really?”

“Man, look at me. I haven’t shaved once since I got here. I am blessed and cursed with chronic babyface.” Eren squints up at Marco, then snorts and reaches up to poke his stubbly cheek with a dripping finger. “You got more beard between now and ten hours ago than I’ve gotten in a damn month, how is that fair?”

Shrugging lazily, Marco finishes eating and hands his cleared plate to Eren. “I’m a furball, what can I say. My dad’s extremely Greek.”

“Oh, shit, that totally explains it. And the supposed afro you keep teasing me with.” Eren finishes washing the dishes and drains the sink, playfully flicking soapy water up at Marco. “You know what’s weird, though?” Leaning his head back against the cabinet again, Marco raises his eyebrows in question. Eren grins loudly and continues, “I have _crazy_ chest hair.”

“What?” Thinking back on Eren’s sundress, the low neckline of which having revealed no such thing, Marco’s forced to give Eren a decidedly skeptical smirk. “Bullshit.”

“You asked for it,” Eren laughs, and then he pulls up the hem of his loose t-shirt, and yup. Crazy is a word for it. Thick and dark and suspiciously neat are a few more. Possibly also luscious, if it’s as soft as it looks. “You may call me Ron Jeremy.”

“Is Ron Jeremy known for his chest hair?”

Eren lets his shirt drop, raising a thick eyebrow up at Marco. “Back in the day, yeah. Guy was a walking shag rug. You not familiar?”

Marco snorts, loosely crossing his arms again. “Not exactly my kind of porn.”

“Even so. Classic Ron Jeremy is a sight to behold.”

“I will take your word for it,” Marco laughs, swinging his foot lightly into Eren’s thigh. “So am I shearing you, or what?”

“Yeah, man, let’s do it.”

\--

Sitting shirtless on a chair in the bathroom, his wild hair curling up in every direction, Eren smiles encouragingly at a nervous-looking Marco and patiently waits for him to get his shit together. 

He hasn’t ever cut anyone’s hair but his own, and even that took years to get used to. The best scissors he could find aren’t really that sharp, either, but they’re theoretically better than nothing. As chill as Eren is about all this, Marco can’t help but sweat slightly, his stomach turning in slow, anticipatory knots.

With a deep breath, he allows himself a long moment to be fully distracted by Eren’s bare torso. 

Sweet-ass body hair aside, this is probably the best look he’s gotten thus far at the brunette’s impressive collection of tattoos. Eren seems more than willing to let him soak them in, his posture clearly setting the designs on display. He must be used to being examined by now; there’s not even a shred of discomfort in his relaxed smile. Just patience. 

Marco’s eyes carefully follow the smooth flow of colors and bold lines up his strong arms, a stream of gently gradated ink winding under his collarbones before sneaking down into the thick hair covering his narrow, muscular chest. In the mirror behind Eren, Marco can see the curious form of a bird of some kind, exactly half of the neat outline filled in with intricate black shading, its wings spread wide across the tops of his shoulder blades. Interesting.

Rather than ask about the stories behind Eren’s tattoos just yet, Marco hums quietly, reaching up to tug his tie loose. “So, uh, how do you usually keep it?”

“I dunno,” Eren laughs, running his hand through his stubbornly floppy bangs. “Not akin to a shaggy dog, ideally.”

Rolling his eyes, Marco gently tilts Eren’s chin up toward the light and combs his fingers back through his bangs, grinning as thick curls obscure Eren’s eyes entirely. “I dunno, this look might work for you.”

“Uh-huh,” Eren snorts. “Until I crash directly into a lamppost and end up hitting on it for like ten straight minutes.”

“Some people find that sort of thing charming,” Marco says as he reaches over Eren’s shoulder to grab the scissors off the sink. 

“Yeah, the same people who think the Three Stooges are dating material,” Eren retorts, subtly shifting his knees further apart. Marco hums and slides forward into the silently-offered space Eren makes for him between his legs, more than a little aware of their close proximity. He shakes it off, though, forcing himself to ignore the heat that seems to radiate off of the brunette in slow waves, and idly combs his fingers through shaggy curls again. “Hey, don’t poke my eye out, okay?”

“You say that like you don’t have two of them.”

“Dude, my flirting game relies heavily on winking. Have you ever seen someone with one eye wink? It’s weird.”

“I have never seen you wink,” Marco huffs, slowly pulling a chunk of Eren’s bangs straight between two fingers like his mother does.

“Yeah, well, I haven’t exactly been flirting with you, have I?”

“Oh, bullshit,” Marco laughs, carefully lining up the scissors safely away from Eren’s face before he takes a deep breath and starts snipping. 

“Okay, so maybe I flirt with you a little.”

“You flirt every time you _breathe_ in my direction, I’m not dumb.”

Eren grins lopsidedly, blinking up at Marco from under the sprinkling rain of hair snippets. “Can’t help it. My bad.”

“Uh-huh. Hush, I’m trying not to give you a fun new scar.”

Sighing softly, Eren obeys for the moment, letting Marco focus on awkwardly trimming his bangs with his long, dull scissors. He sits admirably still, too, somehow entirely quelling his restless fidgeting. It certainly makes Marco’s life somewhat easier. 

Trying to remember how Eren had looked when they first met, Marco’s tongue pokes out between his lips in concentration, his fingers skating through vaguely-uneven hair still hanging down into Eren’s eyes. As he works, he even manages to tune out the vivid green of Eren’s unwavering stare, blissfully unaware of the way Eren _looks_ gazing up at him from under his thick, dark eyelashes.

For a while, the only sound between them is the weird grating sound of scissors on hair, punctuated occasionally with Marco’s thoughtful hums. Eren just sits quietly, his idle hands resting loosely in his lap.

The first brush of Eren’s knuckles against Marco’s thigh is probably an accident, a twitch or something, so he pays it no mind. He purses his lips and drags his fingers quickly through Eren’s bangs, trying to remember how he keeps them parted. Down the middle, maybe.

He feels like he might almost be done with the front when Eren’s knuckles graze both of his thighs, slower this time, almost deliberate. Probably just Eren fidgeting, he’s been sitting so damn still for so long.

When he finally gets as close to the hazy picture in his memory as he can, Marco reaches over to set the scissors on the edge of the sink, and as he’s ruffling Eren’s hair, teasing the cut ends back into loose curls, the third slip of Eren’s hands is by no means an accident.

Marco freezes, his lips parting slightly, and he finally becomes conscious of the burning intensity of Eren’s level gaze, still trained patiently on his face. His own fingers are still buried in the thick hair trailing over the brunette’s ears. They twitch as Eren’s hands squeeze gently where they’re curled around the backs of his thighs. His grip isn’t terribly suggestive; it’s not like he’d grabbed Marco’s ass or something.

Still, Eren’s never touched him like this. His warm palms linger, completely at odds with the usual fleeting brush of his fingertips, the usual too-quick graze just across the folds of his clothes. It’s deliberately casual, lacking even a breath of insistence or urgency. Just... touching. Holding, almost.

Eren has yet to stop watching him, his expression carefully neutral. It’s like he’s waiting for Marco to respond, to break free from his frozen deer-in-headlights impression. Waiting for him to push him off, or maybe to climb right into his lap.

Marco swallows audibly, his trembling fingers slowly combing through the shaggy edges of Eren’s bangs, leaving the uneven ends curling over the angles of his strong jaw.

 _God,_ Marco would love to take Eren up on his unspoken invitation. His dry lips burn with the need to feel Eren’s panting breath against them, and the warm imprints of Eren’s hands curved loosely around the backs of his thighs sear into his skin, that gentle touch carving itself into his memory and setting his heart pounding.

Of course Marco wants him. He wants _unspeakable_ things, mouths and hands and skin on greedy skin, humid sweat-slick fantasies to play out whenever he has thirty seconds to himself.

But as much as his flushed skin is humming, alight with a storm of dancing sparks, as much as the rolling heat between his ribs is already swirling deeper, pooling in his hips and setting fire to his blood, as much as he _wants_ this, there’s still something else Marco wants more.

More than anything else, more than any of the tantalizing offers flickering behind Eren’s slowly-darkening eyes, Marco wants Eren to want _him._ For real.

He needs to know that Eren isn’t just offering himself up because he feels like he should, as repayment or something. Marco flat-out refuses to be another Thomas. Eren deserves so much more than that, even if he’s not entirely convinced of it just yet.

With a low, shivering sigh, Marco wets his lips and shifts slightly between Eren’s thighs, and when he finally speaks, his voice is but a clearly-affected whisper.

“Turn around, let me shave the back.”

After a long, tense moment and a slow blink, Eren does.

This part goes significantly faster, given that Marco’s much more familiar with his trimmer. He does as requested, shaving Eren’s curls up off his neck, and the whole time he’s working, Eren stares down at the hair-flecked bathroom tile. Marco checks on him in the mirror occasionally, making sure the brunette isn’t crumpling under the weight of Marco’s temporary rejection, but he can’t quite find the voice yet to tell Eren exactly why he’d backed off. 

Instead, he gives him the best undercut he can manage, carefully tidying up the short hair trailing down the nape of his neck, and when he finishes, he gives Eren’s hair a healthy, playful rumple.

“No more shaggy dog, huh,” Marco hums quietly, moving to brush loose trimmings off of Eren’s shoulders and onto the floor. “How’s it feel?”

“Good,” Eren murmurs, glancing up into the mirror and turning his head to check it out. “Yeah, way better. Thank you.”

“’Course.” Once Marco’s swept most of Eren’s hair away, as much as he can get with his fingers alone, he lets his hands rest on the brunette’s colorful shoulders. Just touching, holding, the same as Eren had done. Blinking at the floor, Eren scans the tile between his bare feet for a moment before lifting his gaze to meet Marco’s in the mirror.

A heavy moment passes before Marco exhales slowly and lets one hand slide further, brushing across Eren’s chest to his other shoulder, until he’s leaned down enough to press his face into Eren’s hair, wrapping him in a warm, gentle sort of hug. It’s lame, but it’s the best Marco can manage right now.

Eren hums softly and reaches up to rest his hands on Marco’s arm, dipping to bury his nose in the crook of his elbow. His lips just barely brush the sensitive skin of Marco’s inner forearm, too brief to be considered a kiss, but undoubtedly affectionate nonetheless. 

It’s enough for now.

“Alright, scoot,” Eren says after a while, clearing his throat of lingering roughness. He turns and aims a crooked grin up at Marco. “I gotta wash all these hair bits off me or they’re gonna get super itchy.”

“Can’t have that,” Marco laughs, straightening up and letting his hands slide away entirely. 

“Thanks again, Marco,” Eren mumbles, catching his lip between his teeth as his gaze falls to the hairy floor again. “I’ll sweep up the remains, no worries.”

Marco nods and slinks out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and once the shower starts up, he hopes to god the running water is loud enough to cover the frantic, needy sounds he can’t quite muffle in his pillow.

\--

They both seem to be in favor of not discussing what happened in the bathroom or anything after. Marco doesn’t bring it up, and neither does Eren. Instead, Marco continues his educational efforts in pop culture, and they’re both perfectly content with that.

Eren tries to learn a song Marco likes on the ukulele for most of the evening, his concentrated frown barely lit by the soft light from the lamp in the corner. Marco is happy to watch and listen, curled up in his chair and bouncing his foot along to the beat whenever he can catch it.

“It’s not too hard,” Eren says after a while, grinning up at Marco. He flicks his bangs off his face, clever fingers running through the chorus again, then leans toward his host with an overly-excited look on his face. “You gotta sing, though.”

“What? No,” Marco wheezes, his hands curling around a mug of tea. “No way.”

“I can’t sing and play at the same time.”

“You are such a liar!” Grinning widely, Marco grabs a couch pillow and flings it right at Eren’s puppy face. “I’ve watched you sing and play at the same time like a hundred times.”

“Okay, fine,” Eren huffs, scooting closer. “I lied. I’m sorry.”

“Mmmhm.”

“I’m just curious about what your singing voice sounds like.”

“A choking kangaroo, I promise you.”

Eren tilts his head and squints. “Have you _heard_ a choking kangaroo?”

“I haven’t heard a kangaroo period,” Marco giggles, sinking deeper into his chair and biting his lip. “But I assume they sound horrifying, and that’s about how my singing voice sounds.”

“Nah, I doubt that,” Eren hums, leaning forward to cross his arms on the arm of the couch. “See, you have a nice talking voice, so I’m willing to bet a pile of Ukrainian hryvnia that you have a nice singing voice too.”

“You keep your drug money, Scarface, I couldn’t even figure out what country that cash came from until I read your journal.”

“Marcooo,” Eren wheedles, “I’m dying of curiosity. You’re killing me by proxy.”

Marco rolls his eyes, sipping his tea loudly just to be obnoxious. “Like it’s that easy.”

“You’re right. I have two big fat bullet holes in me. Killing me is harder than it looks.” Marco raises his eyebrows, but refrains from asking where they might be. Eren continues, “But I will mope myself to death if I don’t find out for sure, pretty please?”

“You’ll be letting down a lot of old Texan ladies,” Marco laughs. “Who will they give their boob cash to if you’re dead?”

“Some sad sap.” Eren flops back along the couch and attempts to play a mournful ukulele riff. It’s wildly unsuccessful. “I’m gonna have to live the rest of my life never knowing what you sound like singing, Marco.”

“And it’ll be a life made all the richer for it.” Marco straightens up and squints at Eren, moving to set his tea on the coffee table. “Why are you so interested, exactly?”

“I just wanna know!” Eren sits up again, running his hand through his hair with a crooked grin. “It’s an unsolved mystery.”

“Just imagine Barry Manilow.”

Eren wrinkles his nose. “Ew. Do I have to?”

“Yes. Naked.”

“Why do you hate me?” Eren collapses again, throwing his arm across his eyes for dramatic flair. “I’ve shown you nothing but kindness and chest hair.”

“And it is much appreciated,” Marco deadpans. “Your reward is not having to hear me sing. You’re welcome.”

“One song.” Eren peers at Marco from under his elbow, sticking his lip out just a little. “Please? I promise I’ll drop it.” Marco squints again, his lips pursed, until Eren crumbles under his scrutiny and sighs noisily. “Look, it’s just. Kinda embarrassing.”

Marco snorts. “Not more embarrassing than me singing. Spill.”

Sighing again, Eren sits back up and slouches heavily over his ukulele, plucking idly at the strings. “I can’t really remember what people’s voices sound like unless I’ve heard them sing. But if I’ve heard them sing, I can remember them perfectly. It’s weird.” Eren glances shyly at Marco from under his eyelashes, pausing for a moment to chew on his jagged fingernail. “I guess I just really wanna remember what you sound like. Even if it’s goofy.”

Blinking widely, Marco feels himself starting to blush, so he scratches his nose and stares at his mug. “O-oh.”

“Yeah.” Eren strums a quiet chord, then mumbles, “Don’t really wanna forget anything if I can help it.”

Definitely blushing. The tips of Eren’s ears are bright pink too, though, so at least Marco isn’t alone. He clears his throat softly before asking, “What, um. What song?”

Eren perks right back up, a broad smile spreading across his flushed face. “How ‘bout that one I just picked up? You seem like you already know all the words.”

“Oh god,” Marco whines, burying his face in his hands. Eren’s not wrong, at least. Marco’s had ‘Riptide’ unintentionally memorized for a while now, since the radio has been relentless in playing it for the last few months. “You’re not allowed to make fun of me,” he grumbles, peering at Eren between his fingers. “I mean it, I know where you sleep.”

“I won’t make fun, I swear,” Eren says, scooting even closer, right up against the arm of the couch. “I wouldn’t anyway.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Marco scrubs his hands over his face, trying to cover for the bright cherry red he must be by now. “I don’t even do drunk karaoke, you know.”

“Then I’m extra super honored and eternally grateful, and I’ll make sure to remember this every single day.” Eren plays a few chords over Marco’s sputter, making sure he didn’t forget them, before he beams back up at him. “Just say when.”

“I _cannot believe._ ” Making his flustered nervousness well-known with another loud groan, Marco gives himself a good shake, but then he sits up straight and nods stiffly.

Anxious shortness of breath sets Marco off to a rough start, but Eren, as always, is nothing if not encouraging, and by the time the chorus hits, the words feel almost unintimidating as they spill into the warm air between them.

Yet another terrifying obstacle made surprisingly simple with Eren’s enthusiastic guidance.

In another month, he’ll be gone again.


	4. Pyromancy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And just like that, the world goes up in smoke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://avoidingavoidance.tumblr.com)
> 
> michael bodt courtesy of southspinner, please read atsit and fall in love
> 
> emily courtesy of kenjiandco, who collects bodts like pokemon

Eren genuinely doesn’t mind, he says. He rolls his eyes and insists that he’ll be fine, that it’s no problem, that he’s used to being alone anyway. He then pales slightly at the horror on Marco’s face at those words, but he doesn’t backpedal, nor does he stammer out an attempt to take them back, because they both know how true they are.

“It’s only for a night,” Marco says, half for his own benefit. He scratches his nose and stares out the window at the rainy Seattle skyline, but he still catches the edge of Eren’s shy expression, the private little smile he aims at the wrinkled newspaper spread out on the coffee table before him. “I would invite you along,” he continues when Eren doesn’t speak, “But you do _not_ want to be there. Trust me. My mom is... look, I love her, but she’s a _mom_ in every possible way.”

“Marco, Jesus,” Eren laughs, lacing his hands behind his head as he leans back against the edge of the couch. “It’s really okay! I’m not even religious. My parents are Muslim, anyway. Christmas isn’t a big thing for me, never has been.”

There are a dozen things Marco feels like he could say in response. That he’s not terribly religious either, that he’s worried Eren might get lonely, that it’ll be the first time Eren’s been stuck there alone overnight... 

Eren already knows all of that, though, so Marco doesn’t say anything.

Humming softly to himself, Eren goes back to flipping through an ancient-looking book on Ecuador he’d checked out from an honest-to-god library, and comfortable quiet fills the air between them once more.

Later that afternoon, Marco jingles his keys agitatedly in the kitchen, an overnight bag mostly stuffed with presents hanging over his shoulder, and Eren leans his chin in his hand on the island counter as he raises a teasing eyebrow at Marco’s obvious hesitance.

“I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon,” Marco says finally, chewing on his thumbnail.

“Drive safely,” Eren chirps, and the little smile curling around the soft edges of his lips makes Marco’s brain short out like a wet circuit. He flicks his gaze aside before his traitorous thoughts go wandering again, clearing his throat slightly.

“Feel free to help yourself to stuff,” he wheezes. “Wine, TV, whatever you want. Oh, and the computer too, if you need to look something up. It doesn’t have a password or anything.”

“I’ve got my books,” Eren replies lightly, before the way Marco disdainfully wrinkles his nose wrings a barking laugh out of him. “Nerd. You’re such an IT guy!”

“It _is_ what I do for a living,” Marco grumbles. “Seriously, those books have to be like forty years old, there’s no way they’re accurate anymore. _Google,_ please, for the love of god.” Eren rolls his vibrant eyes, half-conceding with a lopsided shrug. 

Marco’s kind of starting to suspect that Eren doesn’t actually know how to use newer technology, but he hasn’t said anything about it yet. Maybe Eren just prefers the simplicity of static print, the weird zen of scanning through dry, faded pages for potentially useful information. The old-book smell certainly clings to him more than one might expect, subtle and constant like the light smudges of ink on his rough fingertips.

Marco tries not to think about how closely he must have to observe Eren in order to pick up on these things. Nor how much the smell unexpectedly suits him.

Not now. Marco shakes his head to center himself. “Alright, well,” he sighs finally, slowly buttoning up his coat. 

“Merry Christmas, Marco,” Eren hums. 

“Oh.” Marco blinks up at Eren, who beams at him all bright and pretty like the winter-veiled sun. “Thank you. Uh, you too?”

“Thanks.”

Even though he feels like he’s forgetting something, Marco nods stiffly, and then he leaves.

He knows exactly what his mind thinks he’s missing, anyway.

The way his lips burn in Eren’s proximity hasn’t faded since the night he cut his hair. If anything, it’s gotten worse. 

Lately, every emotion he feels around the little brunette is amplified a thousand times over, leaving him giddy with breathless laughter or blinded by Eren’s playful, crooked grins, and closing his eyes only teases him with the photonegative afterimage of Eren’s enormous light like blurred, swirling sunspots. 

Marco feels so _alive._

The feeling comes with a price, though.

Now, he can’t even look at Eren for too long without wanting to move close to him, to wrap his arms around those decorated shoulders and bring him yet closer, to bury his face in soft, messy hair and inhale deeply that dry ink smell. He wants to feel those cowlicks curl through the spaces between his fingers again as he gently tilts Eren’s face up to his.

Whenever they’re close, and the still air between them is quiet and comfortable, Marco wants to kiss Eren so badly he can barely breathe.

\--

Marco survives another Bodt legion Christmas, although just barely. He loses yet another lively wrestling match to his older brother, Michael, and another to Michael’s wife, Emily. And several to their children. And to his own many younger siblings. And his father.

He may or may not be the family doormat. It’s a Christmas tradition for all fourteen of the Bodts and Bodt-in-laws to end up sitting on Marco at some point or another, and has been for just about his entire life. He really doesn’t mind it, given how rarely he gets to be with his entire family at once, but it does have its downsides.

\--

When Marco drags himself back into his apartment the next evening, he feels more like roadkill than anything else, and Eren is quick to notice. “Dude,” the brunette laughs, crossing his arms over the back of the couch as he raises a thick eyebrow at Marco. “I thought Christmas was supposed to be a time of _peace,_ or whatever.”

Whether it’s the family-induced delirium or the lack of substantial sleep, Marco isn’t quite sure. Maybe it’s both. Whatever it is, he feels his rigid grasp on his self-control slipping, eased right along by the light behind Eren’s playful smile, and he quickly finds himself unable to do anything but stare. 

So, rather than respond, Marco just stands in the kitchen and stares at Eren, his damp coat slipping off his shoulder as fatigue fogs his already overworked brains.

Right now, Marco’s running on fumes, that much is true. His whole family is so full of vitality that it’s explosive in large doses, a surging brushfire spreading unchecked and unchallenged, and as much as he loves them, he always finds himself completely swept up in it. It’s doesn’t matter that he grew up in that house, surrounded for years by colorful people brimming with colorful energy. It doesn’t matter that he blends in seamlessly there, always falling easily into their rapidfire pace. It doesn’t matter that he knows perfectly how to run with the bulls.

Whenever Marco comes home from spending time with his family, he comes home overwhelmed and overstimulated. Wrung out by their boundless energy, by the enormous heat of their combined livelihood. He comes home drained and more than ready to sit quietly for a while, but even so, his apartment always seems so much colder, so much greyer in comparison, the switch almost whiplash-inducing at times.

Now...

Eren blinks his wide, pretty eyes and tilts his head in silent question, and Marco’s tired gaze follows closely the subtle twitch of his shaggy bangs as they shift across his furrowed brow.

Now Marco’s jumping from one fire into another, and by all rights, he should be just about ready to cry.

He’s not, though.

This heat, this light... it’s different. It’s something Marco’s only ever found in Eren, a shining star that continuously defies the cage of words Marco keeps failing to trap it in. 

As burned out as Marco is, coming home to this warmth feels so _nice._ Nothing at all like leaving cold, rainy work and entering a cold, rainy apartment, nor like stumbling out of a towering inferno and tripping right into a frigid downpour. His heart is beating, his skin tingling and his mind fuzzy, but when Eren’s warmth washes over his tired body, his pulse stays remarkably steady. 

Where his family’s fire is relentless and tireless, sharply flaring up and out and beyond his comfortable limits, Eren’s fire is malleable, responsive, always seeming to know exactly what Marco needs from it and how much he can handle. Faced now with his utter exhaustion, those flames burn soothing with the gentle warmth of the morning sun, cheerfully welcoming him without need or want for words.

The lively energy here isn’t too volatile to endure, either, nor deafening in its excitement and affection. Not when Marco can’t handle it, anyway. Rather, Eren floods the apartment with his easy presence like heat from a wood stove, breathing new life and vibrant color into rooms Marco’s long since memorized, but the flames are so gentle, so patient that Marco doesn’t even have to try to keep up with them. 

(He’s just thinking too much, he tells himself, but he’s not so foolish as to believe that it’s really that simple.)

Suddenly, Marco finds himself sorely regretting every moment Eren’s been too scared to let himself fully occupy this space, every moment he’s had to live in shades of grey without the shining light of Eren’s unique star to fill in Marco’s own lack of color.

Here, sharing the same comfortable space as Eren, Marco is _alive._ Blissfully, radiantly, gratefully alive, free for now of the heavy chains of his well-worn habits and his greyscale normalcy. 

Now visibly concerned, Eren breathes a cautious murmur of Marco’s name, so he pulls it together enough to drag himself up and out of his sluggish introspection. How long had he spaced out this time? He shakes his head again, trying to knock loose some of the fluff stubbornly lingering between his ears.

“Sorry about that,” Marco mumbles, his voice rougher than he’d intended. “I’m still trying to get my brain back in order.”

“You spaced out pretty hard there, even for you, space cadet. Family’s rough, huh?” Eren chuckles, running a hand through his bangs.

“Mm, yes and no,” Marco sighs. He drops his coat onto the back of a chair, then rolls his tense shoulders as he slouches into the living room.

When he comes around to flop on the couch, Marco keeps right on flopping and ends up with his head resting on Eren’s thigh. Eren only tenses briefly before he comfortably adjusts to Marco and lets him start to decompress.

After he’s gotten himself settled, Marco curls up on his side and tells Eren about his many brutal defeats at the hands of his legion family, which entertains the brunette endlessly. He listens as attentively as Marco listens to him, asking questions and laughing, and the switch in their dynamic is almost suspiciously natural. Eren seems just as intrigued by Marco as Marco is by him, which is kind of mind-blowing, given that Eren’s been on just about every continent at least twice and Marco only drove half an hour away to get his ass handed to him by a horde of children.

Still, Eren never seems bored, and he picks up on the numerous details of Marco’s family insanely fast. He even remembers all seven kinds of pie Marco and his mother made when Marco’s struggling to list them out again later.

At some point, Eren’s gentle, hesitant fingers curl into Marco’s hair, slowly working out yet-uncombed holiday tangles, and Marco doesn’t even notice when he falls fast asleep still lying in Eren’s lap.

\--

When Marco politely turns down Petra’s invitation to her New Year’s Eve party, he tells himself that he doesn’t even like big parties, which is mostly true. He tells her that he already has plans, which is somehow both true and untrue at the same time, given that he hasn’t _officially_ asked Eren to celebrate the evening with him. Ever the observant one, Petra smiles knowingly at him and ignores his sputtering as she flounces away to her desk, and he subjects himself to a moment of rightful shame for how grossly obvious he is in his pining.

The shame fades after a while, but when he nearly has a heart attack later just imagining Eren in a party hat, it returns full force. Marco’s never actually had to clutch his chest and take deep breaths to combat cute-induced dizziness before. Party hats aren’t even _that_ cute, for god’s sake.

But Eren is.

Eren really, really is.

\--

Marco doesn’t buy party hats. He honestly doesn’t think he’d survive it. It’s bad enough that he’s going to be spending a long, cozy winter night alone with Eren in the low light of his living room as they wait for the ball to drop on this slice of the world. Somehow, he has to keep himself from kissing Eren then, too. Accursed New Year’s traditions.

He resolves to take it _extremely_ easy on the wine. Just to be on the safe side.

\--

“Okay, so,” Eren says, scooting closer to Marco to point at the map still spread across the coffee table, now extremely decorated with scribbles and notes and post-its and arrows, tiny lists swirling through the oceans all down the west coast and scattered through the wide open of Brazil. Marco leans in too, closer than is probably prudent, but he knows by now that neither of them really mind the proximity. “I thought I was going to be able to leave from Texas, but my cruise buddy’s gonna be working out of Fort Lauderdale in Florida at the end of January.” He shrugs vaguely, turning to grin at Marco. “I’m not that worried about it, old Floridian ladies are good to sail with too.”

Marco nods, dramatically faking concern when he asks, “But do they have boob cash?”

“Marco Bodt, asking the important questions,” Eren laughs, pausing to take a sip of his wine. It’s still an hour and change before the ball drops, and Marco’s making his best effort to stretch his own drink out as long as possible, especially given the way Eren tends to suck lingering wine off of his lips every time he drinks. “They’ve got boob cash too, but they also have _raunchy_ sense of humor, so it might actually work out better for me.”

Snorting loudly, Marco shakes his head and rests his chin in his palm, glancing down at the map to avoid staring directly at Eren’s wine-dark lips. Too damn tempting. He really should’ve bought white instead of red, special occasion be damned.

“Unfortunately, we’re gonna dock in Costa Rica four days later, which doesn’t give me much time to earn said boob cash.”

“So you’re gonna have to be extra charming?”

“Either that, or I’m gonna have to stay on the cruise longer, which I’m not really trying to do.” Eren bites his lip as he runs a hand through his hair, scooting forward slightly to drag his finger through Panama and down the coast. “I want to start as far north as I can, but if I get desperate, the cruise goes all the way through El Callao, in Peru.”

Marco hums quietly, squinting at the notes scribbled between Costa Rica and Peru. “Seems like you have a lot of stuff you want to do in that area, though.”

“I really do, yeah,” Eren sighs. “Plus, this is kind of a ritzy cruise liner. Not really my scene, personally. I’d rather be out there on my own two feet, you know? Not just floating from sight to sight. Some people prefer that, which is fine, but I get antsy, start wondering if maybe I missed something between two points. I prefer taking my sweet-ass time and discovering things as they come to me.” Pausing to pick up the hastily-scrawled cruise itinerary, Eren purses his lips in thought for a moment, then continues, “Two of those first four days are just open water, at least, which means they kind of have no choice but to pay attention to me.”

“I don’t think getting their attention will be the struggle,” Marco chuckles quietly, quick to change the subject before Eren comments on his obvious flirting. “So if everything goes as planned, what then?”

“Well, then I head out.” Leaning back into the couch, Eren nibbles idly on the rim of his wine glass. “If everything goes smoothly and the weather behaves, I should pretty much clear Patagonia by the end of May.” Marco raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t interrupt. “From there, I’ll find a way down to Ushuaia. If I like it there, I might try to hang out for a little while. Another month, maybe. Then I’ll probably fly back to the States, ‘cause it’s gonna be deep winter by then and I’m not fucking with that more than I have to.”

Chewing his lip for a moment, Marco fiddles with his own glass, then cautiously asks, “Where to after that?”

A beat passes, and Marco worries briefly that he might’ve been caught, but Eren replies as easily as he has been this whole time, albeit a tiny bit more quietly. 

“Mm, not sure yet. Find somewhere to sit down for a while, then start planning out the next trip.” He grins again, although Marco can’t help but feel like this one might be slightly forced, a touch less jovial. “Next one’s definitely Southeast Asia, but that’s all I’ve decided. Trying not to get ahead of myself just yet.”

“I see,” Marco murmurs. “Five months, then, huh.”

“Yup. Well, kinda.” Marco blinks up at Eren, who just shrugs. “Between five and seven. I get pretty distracted sometimes, so I like to leave a wide window. It’s a relaxed timeline, anyway...” Biting his lip again, Eren casts his gaze down into his wine, and his attempt at a casual tone is painfully transparent. “It’s not like I got places to be. I usually just let myself wander. The timeline’s really just so I don’t forget to do stuff or get too lost.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Silence falls between them again, Marco flailing for his words while Eren drowns his in another mouthful of wine. The countdown to the new year ticks silently on Marco’s TV, pulling dense seconds into oblivion one after the other. It makes Marco nervous to look at, his internal timekeeper growing more agitated with every counted breath he spends in his speechless fog, so he blinks back down at the map and tries to pretend that he isn’t suffocating.

“Oh, I got a journal for this trip, too,” Eren says after a long minute, setting his glass down in Bolivia before he crawls to the other end of the couch to fish around in his bags. “I made sure to get a big one, since this trip is so long.”

Marco sits up interestedly, but he has to laugh when Eren pulls out an enormous leatherbound tome, one of those strangely ornate journals people usually buy as gifts for eccentrics. He sees them in bookstores sometimes, but he never imagines that people actually use them, which is really a shame. They’re lovely books.

“You think you can fill that whole thing?” he asks, delicately sipping his wine. He watches Eren run the pad of his finger over the large, intricate tree design pressed into the soft leather cover, distracted by the distinct spread of the branches until Eren answers him.

“I’m gonna try,” Eren mumbles, rubbing his thumb up and down the trunk. “I wanna start drawing the things I see more, you know? Maybe start keeping track of the dates, too. If I’m gonna record stuff, it should probably actually be readable later.”

Tilting his head, Marco watches Eren’s face for a moment, but he can’t quite read the brunette’s expression. “What about living in the moment?”

Eren laughs quietly, sitting back against the couch again with a soft smile. “Marco, I _always_ live in the moment. Pausing to jot down the things I see won’t keep me from living them.” He blinks down at the journal again, sucking on his lips, before he murmurs, “Besides, maybe it’s time to start recording _everything_ I see, even if no one believes it.”

Marco blinks at him, then slowly turns to face him fully. “You leave things out on purpose?”

“Oh yeah,” Eren chuckles. He rubs the back of his neck, still avoiding eye contact. “All the time.”

“Why?”

The question lingers in the thick air for a moment as Eren considers his answer, his gaze wandering idly as he does. It’s more careful than he usually is with words, and Marco’s just starting to wonder if he’s overstepped some boundary when Eren sighs and licks his lips. “Sometimes you really have to see something to believe it.” Glancing at Marco out of the corner of his eye, he mumbles, “Some things are too unreal for words on a page.”

Unsure what to make of that response, Marco watches Eren’s fingers move along the rough edges of the journal’s pages for a while. He’s absolutely _burning_ with curiosity, but Eren’s being so quiet, so cryptic that Marco can’t quite bring himself to probe that deep. Not just yet.

Instead, he clears his throat and asks, “Is... is that what happened in Mongolia?”

Eren laughs, a wide, pretty smile spreading across his face. “Yeah, actually. Good catch. I had no idea how to record the stuff I saw out there, so I figured I wouldn’t do it the injustice of trying.”

“Oh.” Marco swallows, gently swirling his wine as he tries to unstick his throat without a trillion nosy questions pouring out like paint. “I see.”

The silent timer ticks through deafening seconds, shaping them into heavy minutes, building a stone monument out of the time they can’t find anything to say to each other, and Marco has to try his hardest not to fidget or bounce his leg or babble. Eren’s obviously a million miles away, his glassy eyes aimed at nothing in particular. Probably reliving the overpowering memories of something too large even for his many languages. There’s a tiny smile still gracing the corners of his lips, subtle and quiet and so at odds with the beaming grins Eren usually wields. This smile feels almost private, an aftereffect of revisiting his unrecorded memories, so Marco averts his eyes, staring again into the gentle whirlpool he makes in his wine.

Marco _knew_ there was something in those forty days. He knew there had to be a reason Eren continues enthusiastically leaping into so many vast unknowns and outrageous dangers, why he spends so much time just wandering across the earth without any apparent goal but to _see._ Calling Eren an adrenaline junkie only ever scratches the surface of why he does what he does, and it’s honestly just another piss-poor attempt to put his expansive, complicated presence into a box far too small for him. In his journals, he sounds almost bored by the terrifying things he lives through, or maybe mildly amused by them. He’s more passionate about the people he meets and the things he learns, the cultures he experiences, but even philanthropy doesn’t quite cover it.

The overwhelming fire with which Eren lives his life seems to Marco to stem from his secret places. It seems to come from those things Eren’s never been able to put into words before. It comes from the unreal things, the truths too strange even for fiction, the things Marco’s sensed from the beginning and craved like oxygen, but that he’s never quite been able to touch. It comes from the things only Eren knows, and that he thinks no one else will believe or bother with.

It genuinely crushes Marco’s heart to think again that Eren’s lived with these moments pretty much alone, and to remember how lonely, how _broken_ Eren is because of that. That he’s treated like a stranger in a strange land in places where he deserves solid ground, that he’s basically a toy to some people. He said that Marco talks to him more than anyone else, and Marco _already_ feels like he doesn’t talk to him nearly enough. He feels like he knows Eren inside and out and not at all. 

He wants to know more, to see what he sees, to feel what he feels, to taste freedom as it really exists, intricately laced around and within Eren’s every breath. It’s almost impossible for Marco to imagine a world where he wouldn’t be drawn to Eren like a moth.

Eren deserves to be treasured. Not kept or caged, nor put up on display, but admired as he is, without any limits but his own. He is fire, a brightly-blazing inferno to rival the hottest suns in creation, and contained fires always burn out. He deserves to have someone who sees how _rare_ he is, how incredible and how incomparable he is, but who will let him run free when he feels it’s time.

Marco wants desperately to show Eren how precious and priceless he is. He wants Eren to _know_ how special he is, to shed the weight of the sadness and loneliness other people have instilled in him.

He wants to be that person, that safe place. 

He wants to believe him. 

“D’you—” Marco’s voice cracks, so he clears his throat as Eren blinks out of his daze and peers over at him. “You think no one will believe you?”

Eren shrugs idly, lacing his fingers on top of his head. “Probably not, no. Not just going on my word alone.”

Licking his lips, Marco gives in to the urge to fidget, playing with a loose thread sticking up from the cushion between them. He can feel Eren watching him, his eyes warm and gentle but just as intense as always, almost like he’s peering through him. “I dunno...” he manages after a while, glancing briefly at Eren through his eyelashes. “People believe some crazy things sometimes.”

With a low laugh, Eren turns to face him properly, crossing his legs under him as he leans just barely into Marco’s space. “I suppose so, yeah.” He smiles softly, biting his flushed lip, and asks, “What’s the weirdest thing you believe in, Marco?”

Blinking rapidly, Marco stares into Eren’s eyes, trying and failing to keep himself from falling right into them. His lips part in search of an answer, but somehow every scrap of strange cosmological science escapes his loose grasp under that gaze. Every weird theory about the vast reaches of outer space that Marco has memorized settles at the far corners of his mind. Every bizarre tidbit he’s ever learned about things far above and far below, about multiverse theory, about darkness and light fails to make it to his lips, and all he’s left with is a weak, tiny, “I-I don’t know.” Swallowing again, Marco keeps his gaze locked on Eren’s as he stammers, “B-but I’ve believed a lot of weird things in my life.”

Eren hums quietly, and the sound runs Marco’s mouth dry, because Eren’s leaning closer and he doesn’t know how to pull away anymore. His brain is mush, radio static, filled with clouds he doesn’t recognize as his own but that somehow feel like the endless wild kept within Eren’s burning stare, so close now that he can see tiny specks of gold littered like distant stars through impossibly intense green.

“Would you believe,” Eren breathes, his eyes flicking just for a moment to where Marco’s gnawing on his lip, trying to keep himself centered, “That there’s real magic out there?”

Marco exhales shakily, mostly because he hasn’t in a while. “O-oh?”

“Mhm. Whether you believe me or not, I’ve seen it. It’s not like in the movies or the books. No Harry Potter, no rituals or anything. It’s something you just start noticing one day.” Eren sighs, his breath hot enough, near enough that Marco can feel it as if it were his own. “It’s something you find on the ground or in the air, or sown in the grass in a wild place. It’s something that brings you to a place over and over again. Something out of your control, outside of coincidence or luck or fate.”

Eyes wide, Marco struggles to remember to breathe. Eren’s close, _so_ close, his warmth and his light overpowering Marco’s thoughts, filling his entire being with nothing else. The world ceases to exist but for sparks of gold woven into a crashing green tide, but for the words that linger in his ears and reverberate there until they’ve burrowed deep into his brain.

“It’s something that brings people back together, even when they’re hopelessly lost.”

A few soft beeps emanate from the TV, the screen lighting up in neon colors as little digital fireworks explode over the timer, now drained of its monolithic seconds.

“Happy New Year, Marco,” Eren whispers, hovering for just a beat longer before he laughs quietly and falls back to his end of the couch, and Marco’s eyes shutter closed as the air around him grows cold for lack of Eren’s fire once more.

The clouds clear slowly as Marco figures out how to breathe again, and the dim sounds of this tiny patch of the world cheering to welcome a new year echo through the empty space around them.

He almost gave in. He’s still not entirely sure why he didn’t. His heart is pounding in his throat and his hands are sweating, and his body is crying out in dismay for the few feet now separating them, but Marco swore to himself. 

He swore he’d wait. He swore he’d control himself until Eren comes to him, until he’s sure that Eren wants him, that Eren feels truly safe with him. He swore he wouldn’t give in to his own desires, no matter how loudly they scream in the seemingly-frozen wake of Eren’s intense proximity.

After a long moment, Marco opens his eyes again, his hazy vision finding Eren standing at the window on his tip-toes, drinking his wine and searching for real fireworks in the stormy black sky.

Without a single doubt in his mind, Marco believes in Eren’s magic, because when his mind falls quiet again and his mouth isn’t so dry, he realizes that he can still taste it on the tip of his tongue, hot like snapping sparks and so, _so_ sweet.

\--

The new year comes in cold and rainy, just like nearly every other before it, and Marco finds himself struggling to keep it together.

He hasn’t explicitly _told_ Eren that he believes him, but somehow he thinks he doesn’t have to, just based on the way Eren looks at him now, the way he smiles up at him from beside the looming void of South America. 

Even now, Marco can’t bring himself to beg Eren to come back to him. He can’t be so selfish. It doesn’t matter that he’s never wanted anything so badly in his entire goddamn life. The only thing that _really_ matters to Marco right now is what Eren wants, and if Eren wants him, he’ll come back to him. 

Right?

In his restless daydreams, Marco imagines that Eren’s magic brought them together to begin with, two unsuspecting celestial bodies crashing into each other and then orbiting together like binary suns. He imagines that when Eren leaves, he’ll travel as he likes and see what he likes and bask in the push and pull of his hidden magic, and that when he’s lonely or when the world is quiet, maybe he’ll think of Marco too.

He doesn’t want to imagine a world where Eren surrounds him for just this brief moment, tantalizingly close and blindingly gorgeous, before the orbit dissolves and he drifts away again, out into the endless void and out of Marco’s reach forever. He tries to close himself off, to be less vulnerable, to prepare himself for the gaping tear in his life Eren’s departure will rip open, but in the relatively few evenings they have left together, he can’t help but bring himself ever closer, offering up yet more of his soul to this man he’s just barely beginning to understand.

It’s no longer as simple as waiting for Eren to make the first move, because that’s already happened. Eren made the first move that rainy evening in the bathroom, and he did so again by breathing sparkling embers into Marco’s lungs. He made the first move by agreeing to stay, to tell his stories, to spend his nights within arm’s reach of Marco.

No, the more pressing issue now is that Eren is _leaving._

Whether Marco tells him how he feels or not, whether he kisses him or not, whether they hold each other tight with honest and unconditional desire, in less than a month, Eren will be gone for the better part of a year with no guarantee that he’ll ever find his way back here.

It would be _torture_ for Marco to finally quiet his thunderous yearning only to lose Eren to the uncharted wild again. There’s just not enough time.

He thinks Eren knows it, too. 

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but he thinks Eren might feel the same way. Marco’s not dumb, after all; he sees the way Eren looks at him, the way he smiles and shines for him, the way he lingers in his space a second too long before he averts his gaze and removes himself entirely. 

More than any of that, though, more than any of the thousands of things he wants so desperately to see stirring that hypnotizing gaze, Marco sees Eren’s deep-seated fear.

No matter how he dices it, Marco can’t ignore the unspoken truth that Eren is still scared of him.

\--

Cold days pass where Eren busks all day and reads Marco’s books far into the night, where he watches Marco’s favorite movies and listens to his favorite songs, where he shows Marco all of his favorites in return. They spend rainy evenings together, sitting too close and staring for too long, silence stretching between them until it twists and folds into the wordless shape of their mutual hesitance, of their individual fears and uncertainties.

Eren doesn’t make explicit return plans. Or, if he does, they’re locked away in his head, a carefully-kept secret. In the weight of Marco’s silence, Eren mumbles something about _I’ll see what it looks like when I get there_ or _I’ll call around while I’m down there_ or _it all depends,_ and Marco doesn’t question it, no matter how much it tears at him.

Maybe, he thinks one night with a week and a half until Eren leaves, they’re both waiting to see if time and space bend once more to bring them back together.

Maybe, he thinks immediately after, if he could just be brave and fucking _say something,_ if he could just grow a pair and tell Eren that he wants him to come back, that he wants _him,_ then they could have something. Maybe if he wasn’t so weak, so stuck in his ways and scared to reach for the unknown edges of the earth beneath his feet, he wouldn’t have to lie awake at night wondering if the world will be so kind to him.

\--

When Eren starts packing his things in earnest, condensing and sorting into ‘take’ and ‘store’ piles, folding and rearranging and organizing, Marco has to try with every fiber of his being not to cry.

He’s never hated himself so much for being such a goddamn coward, for being so terrified of his own cage that he would rather sacrifice everything than risk becoming a cage himself.

\--

Two days before Eren leaves, he’s singing to himself in the shower, and Marco digs his huge, blank journal out of its designated pocket and hastily scrawls his name and phone number in the bottom corner of the last page. He only hesitates for a moment before he draws a few messy hearts below it, and he stuffs it away again before he can get cold feet and rip the page out entirely.

\--

The day before Eren leaves, they’re sitting side by side on the couch and watching some strange foreign vampire movie, and somewhere in the middle, Eren shyly reaches over to Marco’s lax hand and curls their pinky fingers together.

The movie isn’t particularly sad, but Eren doesn’t question why Marco cries through the rest of it, their hands joined only by their smallest fingers on the couch between them.

\--

Eren leaves on a Saturday in order to give himself time to store the things he’s not taking with him somewhere and to go through the cruise liner’s crew orientation. His flight is fairly late in the evening, too, but Marco doesn’t dare question it. 

As if to mock them, the long-hidden sun actually shines that day, shedding a false layer of cheer over their mutual melancholy. They spend their last few hours together trying to pretend they’re okay, but their eyes are rubbed raw from scrubbing away tears by the time the sun starts setting in a blaze of pinks and oranges, a rare wildfire across Marco’s stagnant grey skies.

They don’t really know what to say. Marco’s afraid to open his mouth without thinking for fear that he’ll scream, and it seems Eren’s at a complete loss for words as well.

“I’m excited, yeah,” he says quietly over dinner, taking his time eating Marco’s carefully-prepared final meal. “There’s still loads of places I’ve never been down there. Last time I went, I cut through Colombia and rattled around Brazil for a while.”

“It sounds amazing, Eren,” Marco replies, just as quiet, as careful with his words as Eren.

The timekeeper in his head is screaming the time they have left, inducing a pounding headache that Marco refuses to succumb to just yet. It _hurts,_ though, every moment counted on a booming clock, every beat of his slowly-twisting heart sending a forlorn ache through every part of him. The drumming just gets louder and louder, the ticking clock on his kitchen wall like thunder, every crashing second just long enough to remind him that all he has to do is ask.

Eren doesn’t ask for a ride to the airport, and when Marco pushes down his pain and offers, Eren hastily declines.

“I-it’s okay,” he says, shrugging one enormous backpack onto his shoulders before reaching for the other, and finally for his ukulele case. “You’ve already done so much for me.”

“It really wasn’t any trouble,” Marco replies quickly, checking around to make sure Eren has everything. “I really enjoyed having you, Eren. Thank you for staying.”

“Thank you for having me.” Eren licks his lips, and Marco knows so well now the face he makes when he’s biting back something else, something he’s still too scared to say. He doesn’t know how to get Eren to let those bitten-back words out, even now, and it hurts too much to speculate what they could be.

Marco has never hated being an optimist so damn much, because everything he imagines Eren saying is something he would give _anything_ to hear flow naturally from his willing lips.

They hover in the open doorway, Eren harshly silhouetted by the blinding arson of the Seattle sky erupting through the hallway’s wide windows, and Marco looks down at him with every raw part of him screaming through his watery eyes. Eren stares right back, his own eyes barely masking the pain of unfinished business, his lips closed tight around a mouthful of jumbled words waiting to break free.

Eren sighs shakily, then sets down the one backpack, and Marco stands up straight and wipes his palm against his pants, expecting a handshake. Then Eren bends and sets his steel ukulele case on its side between them, and before Marco can ask, Eren’s standing on the damn thing, and it gives him the height he needs to really _look_ at Marco, eye to burning eye. 

Marco wants to laugh, but he wants to cry even more.

“Hey, uh...” Eren murmurs. His voice trails off weakly.

“Y-yeah?”

A long pause, the sun staining the dense air pink and orange and deep, deep red as it dwindles.

Eren’s gaze falls to Marco’s chest for a moment before he looks at him again, eyes swimming with shining tears as he finally breathes, “I really like you, Marco.” 

Before Marco can even begin to process those words, Eren’s warm hands are on his cheeks, and Eren’s wobbling atop his ukulele case, but Marco barely notices any of that, because Eren’s _kissing him._

His own eyes widen as Eren’s slide shut, a comfortable sigh breathing out hot against Marco’s trembling lips, and while Eren seems to relax against him, Marco’s heart is _exploding._

His hands fumble against the doorframe to keep his spinning head upright, because Eren’s kissing him, and every part of Marco’s world has screeched to a smoking halt.

Marco can’t think or breathe or feel anything but Eren’s lips, Eren’s breath, Eren’s _fire_ igniting the oxygen in his chest and his throat like a _volcano._ It burns, it _burns_ as it leaves him astonished, struck dumb by the barest hint of what the wild must feel like on his lips and on his tongue and in his lungs, sparking through his hair in the wake of Eren’s gentle fingers, and the smoking embers beneath Marco’s pounding heart _burst,_ flaring supernova and _consuming,_ and then—

And then Eren’s gone.

Blinking rapidly, Marco whips his head around, searching, but the sound of the door to the stairwell clicking shut echoes like a gunshot.

A beat passes, deafening with his pulse shattering his ringing ears.

As he attempts to recover, to get himself together, Marco continues looking around hopelessly, up and down the painfully empty hallway, even behind himself into the now-cavernous silence of his lifeless apartment.

Once more, Eren’s gone, and so too the setting sun.


	5. Phoenix Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of Eren's sudden departure, Marco is left confused and alone. Even worse, the grey walls of his cage are shrinking further every day, forcing him to make a choice: he can stay safe and let himself be consumed, or he can break free and put himself at the mercy of the indomitable unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://avoidingavoidance.tumblr.com)
> 
> eghhh sorry for the massive delay, have a massive chapter as my apology ;u;

By all rights, Marco knows he should be angry.

The fading sunset fills the empty hallway with the last wavering flames of daylight painted in dark hues, cool night settling like ink in the wake of Eren’s quick escape, almost as if the world itself now mourns the directionless void left in front of Marco.

Seven months.

Tears flood his eyes and immediately spill over his flushed cheeks, not for the first time today and likely not the last, and as Marco breathes a thick, shuddering sigh, he lowers his eyes to the ground.

His brow furrows when his swimming gaze lands on the scuffed metal case for Eren’s ukulele, still propped up before him to give Eren the boost he’d needed. It shines in the dying daylight, either gifted or forgotten, so Marco scoops it up and, with one last careful scan of the hallway, takes it inside.

As he crosses his living room and sinks slowly onto his couch, Marco can’t help but notice how cruelly grey everything seems now that Eren’s taken all his firelight with him. Marco’s too aware that his couch is grey and his carpet is beige and his coffee table is white, and there are no scribbled-on maps or smelly old library books to fill the barren space now. It’s just... empty.

Marco sighs and gently sets the case on the coffee table, then slumps back into the couch and slouches further.

He’s completely at a loss. 

Eren _kissed_ him. He’d even said he _likes_ Marco, with vivid eyes bloodshot and tear-filled and as honest as he’s always been, and he’d kissed him in the year’s first real sunset, and now he’s gone.

As he digs the heels of his hands into his streaming eyes, Marco really tries to convince himself to be angry. Eren just pulled the most absurd kiss-and-run in history, as far as Marco’s concerned, and now he’s left with nothing but a ukulele and a desperate, screaming hope that Eren will come back.

\--

The first few days alone again are almost unbearable.

Everything’s so quiet now, the air too still with only Marco to stir it. Walking to work alone, knowing that the air when he comes home will be just as stale as when he left, is even worse. 

He _knew_ that this would hurt. There was never any doubt about that. Ruminating on it now that he’s feeling that weight certainly doesn’t help. Even so, Marco finds himself so frequently tracing the pads of his fingers over his lips, searching for the aftershocks of Eren’s kiss, seeking those soul-rattling sparks wherever he thinks they might be hiding.

It’s not enough, though.

 _God,_ it’d been perfect, that kiss. It still burns to think about about. How quickly the world had dropped out from under him, even as Eren leaned into him for more, wobbling atop his shaky support. How soft Eren’s lips had felt, how warm his hands were, how sweet his shivering sigh and the flutter of his pretty eyes, how perfectly they’d fit together...

But it’s not a promise.

A kiss and a confession are not promises, and as the new year grows colder, Marco finds himself struggling with that unavoidable truth more than he’d like to admit.

\--

When Marco finally gives in and calls Eren’s cell, he gets an automated message saying that service has been disconnected. He hadn’t really expected any different, given that Eren said himself that he usually kills his phone while he’s in other countries just to make his life simpler and cheaper, but Marco had still allowed himself a tiny, misplaced glimmer of hope.

He ends up stashing Eren’s ukulele case in the linen closet without opening it. He’d had every intention of letting it sit on his coffee table until Eren could open it again with his own hands, but too soon the sweet memories of Eren singing to him in the dark turn sharp and painful.

Those memories hurt too much when they’re juxtaposed with the memories of the fear in Eren’s eyes as he cautiously dodged the question of ever coming back.

\--

Marco spends a lot of time mulling their last few conversations over. 

It’s not like he’d wanted Eren to just... not leave. The direct opposite, actually. He never wanted to take that away from him, never intended to keep him caged close at hand. Marco _wanted_ him to go, to see new sights and find new secrets and learn new things. He wants Eren to be happy in his wandering, no matter how far his journeys take him. 

He just also wants Eren to have somewhere to come home to when he’s ready to rest his wings, and he wants Eren to want to come home too. To know that he has somewhere to go where he’s appreciated.

Loved, even.

Sometimes Marco curses himself and wishes that he’d just plain asked Eren to come back. Sometimes he’s glad he held his tongue, even if this unsure silence hurts like hellfire. He knows dwelling on it won’t change anything, but searching for a little more sureness couldn’t possibly make things worse.

At this point, all he can do is wait and see.

\--

Slowly, time passes.

Marco’s gloomy confusion doesn’t entirely lift, but it doesn’t keep him from settling back into the hollow grey nest of his cozy life. He works, he watches his documentaries, he eats and sleeps and goes about his day as normal, if a little flattened. His timekeeper marches back to the forefront of his brain and grumpily settles itself there again, its feathers ruffled by Marco’s neglect. 

The most noticeable difference now, though, is the loneliness.

He has no idea how the hell he made it through every day without someone to talk to for hours on end, without someone to come home to, without someone to look forward to every single night. He was well aware of how empty his life had been, but having to wade through it again now that he’s seen how different it can be...

It’s suffocating, this thick, empty silence.

But he’s not sure what to do but try to go back to how things were. A creature of habit as always.

As if moving through water, Marco lives.

Normal, normal, normal.

\--

“So, uh,” cute accounting guy says, leaning against his desk as he watches Marco fix an actual IT problem at the end of February. “H-how’s your head holding up?”

Jean hasn’t called for IT support since the last incident, when Marco had nearly knocked himself out with an unhappy epiphany almost three months ago. Marco smiles at up him, raising an eyebrow. “I made that much of an impression, huh?”

“Well, I mean,” Jean mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. “I knew who you were before you cracked your skull open in my office. But yeah, that kinda stuck.”

“It’s fine, thank you,” Marco laughs quietly, turning back to Jean’s computer. He taps his fingers against his lips, squinting at the screen. “Jean, how did you manage to do this?”

Groaning miserably, the blonde leans his head back and scrubs his hands down his face. “I don’t know... I was digging in some network settings and then everything exploded. I’m sorry.” Flushing slightly, he glances at Marco out of the corner of his eye and murmurs, “I _did_ try turning it off and back on again.”

“I figured it had to be a legitimate issue if you’d call me in again,” Marco teases, flashing Jean a playful smile just to poke yet more fun at him. The way he flusters is totally worth it.

“S-so you knew the whole time?” Marco nods, and Jean buries his face in his hands with another groan. It’s not like it’d been hard to pick up on Jean’s ulterior motives with his bogus tech calls. “Shit.”

“Printers don’t usually unplug themselves.” A brief silence falls as Marco troubleshoots, scanning through various windows and diagnostics. “What were you even looking for in here?”

“Um.”

Marco stares at the screen, mumbling to himself, before something occurs to him. It’s silly, but it’s about the only other possibility. He turns to squint up at Jean and asks, “Were you trying to open a different port on the system router from here?”

“... Yes.”

“... Can I ask why?”

Sighing loudly, Jean crams his hands in his pockets and swings around his desk, leaning ‘casually’ out to check up and down the hallway before he bustles back over to Marco and gives him a pleading look.

“Listen, uh. W-when you want to set up a new Minecraft server...”

Marco holds his hand up, not bothering to hide his snickering at Jean’s expense. “I can fix this.”

“ _Oh_ thankgod,” Jean breathes, running his hands through his hair. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but, um.”

“I won’t mention it in my report,” Marco hums, quirking an eyebrow as he goes about resetting Jean’s now-obvious fumble. “I’ll just say you got adventurous with the network settings.” 

“You’re an _angel._ Thank you, thank you thank you.”

“Uh-huh, slacker. How much is it that you get paid again?”

Jean swallows nervously, scratching the back of his head, before he leans against the desk again and says, “E-enough to buy you a drink. If you want.”

It takes a second for Marco to process that, but when he does, he flushes loudly and stares up at Jean, who is equally red. He knew Jean was interested in his... ‘assets,’ but he didn’t think that interest warranted this much of Jean’s attention. The way he’s blushing, too, biting his lip and peering at Marco almost hopefully...

Like he has a _crush_ on Marco or something.

It’s _really_ cute, but...

“O-oh.” He turns toward Jean and fidgets slightly. “Um—”

“Oh, shit,” Jean mumbles, running his hand over his mouth. “I didn’t even ask—you have someone, right? Shit, I’m sorry, uh.”

Marco’s eyes fall to the tacky carpet between them as his brow furrows slightly.

Even after all the thinking he’s done over the past month, Marco still has no idea where he stands with Eren. What are they to each other? Does he have someone? Or does he just have the ghost of a kiss?

Before he can help it, tears fill his eyes, and gritting his teeth does nothing to stop them. Neither does fisting his hands over his knees.

“Whoa, hey, uh. Marco?”

“I’m sorry,” Marco whispers, squeezing his eyes shut and running his hands through his hair. “Sorry, um. It’s... it’s kinda complicated.”

“Oh.” Jean digs his toe into the carpet, then asks, “Um. Can... d’you wanna get a beer after work?”

Marco shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry, Jean. I don’t, uh. I don’t think I can go on a date with you.”

The blonde hums softly, crouching in front of Marco so he can catch his eye. “Not a date. Scout’s honor.” Smiling encouragingly, Jean continues, “Just some drinks as friends. That’s it. I owe you at least that much for as many times as I made you plug my ethernet cable back in, right? Besides, uh. No offense, but you kinda look like you could really use a friend.”

Sighing slowly, Marco closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, slumping back into Jean’s chair. “It’s... it’s a long, weird story.”

“I know a bar close by that probably won’t run out of beer, long story or no,” Jean chuckles, standing again and hopping up to sit on his desk. “Totally up to you, though. You definitely don’t have to talk to the weird creepy accounting guy who stares at your butt all the time. Free beers, though.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” Marco mumbles, laughing quietly. “Yeah, okay. Sure.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Rubbing his nose idly, Marco quirks a shy smile up at the blonde. “Thanks, Jean.”

“No problem, Marco. Least I can do.”

\--

Marco had expected the story to sound much weirder than it actually does. Granted, he leaves out some of the more interesting bits, but over the course of a few beers, he manages to get everything else out. Perv or not, Jean turns out to be an _excellent_ listener, nodding and letting Marco ramble without interrupting, and it turns out just talking about it with someone other than his internal monologue is a relief in and of itself.

Plus, Jean doesn’t judge him at all, which is nice. Not for how boring he is, nor for how quickly and how badly he fell for Eren. He doesn’t even say anything about the few tears Marco can’t quite hold back toward the end of the story. He just offers him napkins and pats his back, still listening attentively.

Once he’s gotten it all out, right up to the point where everything’s too damn quiet without a colorful vagrant camping in his living room, Marco digs the heel of his hand into his eye and takes a steadying breath, and Jean patiently lets him collect himself.

“You know,” the blonde murmurs after a while, idly licking beer foam off his top lip, “I’ve heard longer and weirder stories.”

Marco groans and leans his head down onto his folded arms. “I’m sorry, Jean... you asked me out, and all I can do is cry about the one that got away...”

“Nah.”

“No, seriously,” Marco huffs, sitting up and biting his lip. “Now that I think about it, this is really kind of cruel to you.”

“Marco, look,” Jean starts, turning to face him properly. “You are hot as hell and a super cute dweeb.”

Blushing loudly, Marco tries to hide his flustering in his drink. “Gee, thanks.”

“No, dude, I mean it. You’re adorable.” Jean leans over and catches Marco’s wandering eye before he continues firmly. “But you don’t have what I’m looking for.” Marco blinks widely. “And I don’t think I have what you’re looking for either.”

“O-oh?”

“Yeah.” Jean leans his elbow on the bar, looking around idly. “You sound like you’re looking for love. I’m... not.” He blinks back at Marco, raising an eyebrow. “Not right now, anyway. Like I said, you’re cute, but I can’t give you what you want. Besides, I think you know exactly what you want, and I’m not him.”

Marco flicks his gaze to his lap, biting his lip guiltily. Jean has a point, but he can’t help but want to apologize to him. “Jean...”

“Marco, it’s _totally fine._ ” When he looks up at him again, Jean’s smiling kindly, his hand resting gently on Marco’s shoulder. “I’m not mad or upset or anything. We’re cool, okay?”

With a tiny smile, Marco nods, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thank you, Jean.”

“No need.”

“You can still stare at my butt if you want. I don’t mind.”

“Seriously?” Jean barks a laugh, squeezing Marco’s shoulder before he lets go and reaches for his beer again. “Thank god. Your ass is a _gift.”_

“I’m not crawling around under your desk anymore, though,” Marco laughs, lightly punching Jean’s arm. “It wears out the knees of my pants.”

“Done deal. Bless your heart, Marco.” Jean finishes his beer quickly and signals the bartender for another round. “So, you’re crazy in love—” Marco chokes on his drink, and Jean slaps his back while he coughs. “But he’s gone until, like, July.”

“Well,” Marco wheezes, taking another sip of his beer to clear his throat. “Agh. Him being gone isn’t the major thing for me, not really. I’m just super confused about _us._ I don’t know where I stand with him, you know? Like, he kissed me and then fled to another continent.”

“Hmm...” Jean throws down some cash for the beers, then turns back to Marco, running his finger along the rim of his fresh beer. “I dunno that that’s how it was.”

Marco stares, eyebrows raised. 

“No, nonono. I don’t mean like _that._ ” Jean sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. “I mean, maybe he didn’t kiss you and then leave. Maybe he was leaving, and he still decided to kiss you.”

Groaning miserably, Marco leans his head back. Semantics. 

“Would you rather he left without kissing you at all?”

“Of course not,” Marco blurts, before he furrows his brow and thinks about it. “No, I... well...”

Jean crosses his legs and leans forward. “Look, correct me if I’m wrong, but you said that he’s used to just... basically _giving_ himself away, right?”

“Because of—”

“I know, I know,” the blonde soothes. “Because people are selfish, evil assholes. But you didn’t let him do that for you, right?” Marco nods. “I mean, he doesn’t sound _too_ dumb. A little dumb, maybe. But smart enough to recognize that you were holding back for his sake, no?”

Chewing idly on his nail, Marco contemplates his beer. It’s not like he’d gone to any great lengths to hide how much he wanted to be closer to Eren. “Maybe?”

“I think so.” Jean sits up, takes a swig of his beer, then continues, “He could have left without kissing you. Wasn’t he already out the door?” Another nod, this one smaller. “So why do it then? Why kiss you right as he was leaving, when he wasn’t in your debt anymore? If you ask me, Marco, that wasn’t repayment. That was a promise.”

Marco hums quietly, finishing his beer before reaching for the fresh one. “I just feel kinda lost, you know? We never really... talked about any of that. Not explicitly. And he never said he was coming back to Seattle, either.”

“Did he say he _wasn’t_ coming back?”

“... No.”

Jean shrugs pointedly. “You said you were waiting for him to come to you. _He came to you._ And then immediately left, but the point is, you wanted him to want you and he _wants you._ ” Marco blinks up at him, trying not to look despondent. “He could’ve left without ever kissing you or even seeing you again, man. But he turned around and made the choice to kiss you and tell you he likes you. Why else would he have done it right then?”

With another groan, Marco digs his hands into his hair and ruffles, trying to absorb Jean’s clearly sound logic. 

“Look, I never said it wasn’t dumb as hell,” Jean laughs, patting Marco’s knee amiably. “And beyond infuriating, yeah. This guy sounds like some kind of crazy. But it also sounds like he has the kind of abandonment issues you can see from _space,_ for god’s sake.”

Marco nods again, watching the tiny bubbles floating up the side of his glass. “I think... maybe he’s not used to being wanted. He’s always traveling, you know? But he moves around so fast, it’s like... he’s running from something, not like he’s getting bored or just looking for a new adventure.”

Humming thoughtfully, Jean rubs the back of his neck and adds, “And you said he seems scared of you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t know why...”

“I mean, no offense,” Jean sighs, knocking his knee against Marco’s, “Dude kinda sounds like one of those manic pixie dream girls.”

Marco raises his eyebrows. “How so?”

“He, like, barges into your cozy life all different and crazy, right? Did he ever tell you you’re boring?”

“No.”

“Try to get you to do crazy shit? Tell you you’ve been following the rules for too long? Make you feel inadequate?”

Furrowing his brow, Marco stares down at his hands. “Never. Not once. I mean, of course I wished I was more interesting, but that never came from him. Just me.” 

“So he didn’t make fun of you for being ridiculously stable—which, kudos, by the way, old man—” Marco rolls his eyes. “But he’s clearly never had that himself, right?”

“What’re you saying?”

Exhaling slowly, Jean swirls his beer and gathers his thoughts. “I dunno, man. He’s never been stable, and he’s never been wanted... sounds like he might be scared of you because you’re so stable and because you want him.” He looks up at Marco again. “Fears like that are _really_ hard to break away from.”

Running his hands through his hair again, Marco sighs loudly and grumbles, “So, what, I should be less... stable?”

“Absolutely not!” Jean leans forward, his stare suddenly intense. “I’m not saying you should change anything about yourself that you don’t want to. I’m saying, you’re everything he’s learned he can’t have.” Marco’s eyes widen. “I’m saying that maybe he ran away because he’s still scared of all this blowing up in his face. But trust me, all you have to do is wait.” 

“... F-for what?”

“Look, this is all conjecture,” Jean sighs, leaning back out of Marco’s space. “But just based on what you’ve told me, I think he’s coming back. But I also think he’s gonna spend his entire time away telling himself that you don’t actually want him, or that you’ll change your mind.”

Marco swallows heavily, then takes a good swig of his beer, his hands shaking slightly. “You, uh.” He pauses to run the back of his hand over his lips. “You kinda sound like you speak from experience.”

Jean blinks down at his drink, turning the half-full glass in his fingers before he gives a lopsided shrug. “Maybe.”

“Oh.”

Shrugging again, Jean sets his beer on the bar and laces his fingers atop his head, his leg bouncing. His agitation doesn’t escape Marco’s notice. “He might spend the next few months telling himself that kind of shit,” he says, his eyes locked on Marco’s knee. “Or he might spend the next few months falling deeper in love with you.” Jean flicks his shrewd gaze up to Marco’s once more. “But he’s coming back. Either to confirm his fears or to sweep you off your feet. Trust me, you haven’t seen the last of this kid.”

“Jean...” Marco holds Jean’s stare, biting his lip, until the blonde blinks a few times and shrugs dramatically.

 _“Or,_ he’s just a fucking crazy suicidal bastard. Who knows.”

_“Jean—”_

“Sorry, sorry.” Chuckling warmly, Jean pats Marco’s shoulder a few times, lifting his beer to his lips. Marco relaxes again, poking at the heavy base of his own glass.

“Thank you, Jean,” Marco mumbles after a few quiet minutes. Jean blinks widely at him, tonguing foam off the corner of his lips. Marco laughs softly and shakes his head.

The more he thinks about it, the more it seems like Jean’s probably right. Maybe Eren’s ill-timed kiss was just another unspoken conversation, a sweet, speechless promise to come back. It _seems_ logical enough.

Then again, Marco’s heavily biased, and Eren’s not exactly bound by the laws of common logic.

Only five months left to wait. Give or take.

\--

That weekend, Marco’s dozing in and out of a documentary he’s watched a few times, something about black holes and spaghetti. 

As he’s sluggishly considering string theory, his unfocused eyes fall on his rarely-touched bookshelf, where something unusual catches his eye. He furrows his brow and forces his vision to get it together, squinting at the shelf until he realizes that the books are out of order.

It’s reasonable enough. He never touches them himself, but Eren had probably read more than half of his meager library during his stay. He was always nose-deep in a book whenever he wasn’t talking to Marco or working on his plans. 

Smiling sleepily, Marco laces his fingers behind his head and dwells on that mental image for a while, not an ounce of shame to him. He imagines Eren curled up at the end of the couch with one of his books, all bathed in warmth and mute daylight, his curly hair haphazardly tucked behind his ear. Maybe he even has faint freckles, his dark skin sunkissed in little star maps across his nose, atop his inked shoulders, down the strong curve of his spine... Maybe he’d be smiling a little, too, nibbling on one of his fingers while his sharp eyes move quickly, devouring words he already knows perfectly like he’s never seen them before, all quiet happiness and breathy laughs.

Marco groans, wrenching himself out of that absurd fantasy. 

As if he didn’t know already, that would just confirm how bad he has it for Eren. 

He stands and stretches lazily, giving up entirely on the slow documentary and instead moving to his bookshelf.

Previously, his books had been in alphabetical order by title, and they had stayed that way since he put them there when he first moved in. Now, though, he can’t really discern a pattern in the chaos. There’s a few toward the end that are still in loose alphabetical order, but most of the shelf is hodge-podge.

Marco traces his finger over his lips, trying to figure out the method to Eren’s madness. Not by author names, not by spine color, not by length...

After a while of staring the shelf down, Marco sees that _The Alchemist,_ the first book Eren had read here, now sits at the beginning of the long row. Right after that is the book Eren had gone for next, _The Martian Chronicles,_ and Marco thinks he gets it now.

Eren had put them back in the order he’d read them. Marco snorts slightly, tilting his head. How the hell does Eren ever find anything like this?

Then again, he doesn’t exactly keep a library in his bags, not beyond his journals.

Sighing slowly, Marco runs his fingers along the books’ worn spines, trying to find the place Eren had stopped. Right after the last one he’d seen Eren reading ( _Hogfather_ ), and right before the ones he hadn’t gotten to yet, there’s a book Marco doesn’t immediately recognize. It’s thick and red, its clothbound spine unlabeled. 

Marco raises an eyebrow as he slides the book out, turning it over in his hands. No title, no markings, nothing. 

A folded paper slips out from under the cover, flitting to the floor before Marco can catch it. He hums curiously, bending to retrieve it, and when he unfolds it, he recognizes Eren’s distinctive handwriting instantly.

“This...” Marco mutters to himself, rubbing his thumb over the small note. He moves back to the couch before he reads it, swallowing nervously. 

\--

_Hey, Marco._

_Sorry, looks like I’ve left a bunch of shit here without your permission... I probably didn’t think this through very hard._

_So. I’m leaving tomorrow. I don’t know if you’ll be able to tell, but I can’t sleep for shit. Too antsy. Not because of travel anticipation. Uh._

_Anyway, I’m pretty loopy and it’s like four am, and I can hear you snoring in there. (I think it’s cute. It never bothered me, no worries.) Before I think better of this, I think I’m gonna stash my journals around your apartment. I don’t know why. I really don’t._

_I just... I don’t know, I don’t._

_I just want you to know me._

_Shit, this is weird. I’m shit at writing letters. I’m talking to you, but I’m not. Not good at one-sided conversations._

_Dammit._

_\- E._

\--

Marco’s hands shake as he reads the little note over and over, memorizing Eren’s frustrated rambling as best he can. 

He’d left his journals stashed all around the apartment, like it’s _Easter_ or something. Marco can’t help but laugh, even through the wet sniffles and the tears dripping from the point of his chin.

 _I just want you to know me._

Sitting up straight, Marco drags his fingers gently down the red cover of the journal, the title page inside reading _‘Caribbean Islands, 2010.’_

Marco clutches the journal to his chest and breathes a teary little laugh, momentarily overwhelmed with hope and infatuation and excitement.

Eren had _left_ him things. Things that matter to him, precious things like his journals and his ukulele.

Surely that means...?

If Eren came back to _Thomas_ because he’d left his ukulele and his journals there, then surely, _surely_ he’d come back to someone who actually cares about him, even if he’s scared.

And when he comes back, Marco’s gonna stop being such a coward, he decides. 

When Eren comes back, Marco’s gonna hold him close and tell him how much he adores him, and that he wants him and wants him to be happy, and how wonderful he is.

Well, maybe. 

If nothing else, Marco thinks, he’s going to show Eren that he’s allowed to be wanted. That he’s allowed to have somewhere to wander home to. He’s not sure how yet, but he has plenty of time to figure it out.

\--

Over the next week, Marco carefully combs through his apartment for things Eren stashed away for him. Eren’s absurdly good at finding hidey-holes, it seems; Marco’s forced to wonder if he’s had to hide things for long periods of time before, things that he couldn’t take right away and had to come back for.

Each of the journals he finds has a little note left inside the front cover for him, a halting, flustered explanation or clarification, a briefly-recalled memory of one of their late-night conversations, a few idle thoughts he wanted to leave behind in his absence. 

Once he’s found all of them (he thinks), Marco stacks them on his kitchen table and sets them in order, and one sunny weekend in mid-March, he starts at the beginning. Some of them he’s read already, but he reads them again anyway, hoping to piece together a story about a man he’s fallen hopelessly in love with.

Even with all that he knows already, there’s still a lot to learn about Eren. Not that Marco’s surprised, not in the least. 

He learns that Eren wasn’t ever afraid of heights until he fell off a cliff in India. He learns that Eren can outdrink a crabby old Irishman, but that boisterous young Scottish women will put him under the table every time. He learns that Eren can lift six Chinese toddlers at once, if they’re optimally positioned, and that he once broke his arm on a Pakistani goat. He learns that there’s an elderly farmer in Spain with a quick temper and a quicker trigger finger, and that Eren has a bullet hole in the meat of his left thigh that he didn’t entirely deserve. (He’d only been trying to _ride_ the alpaca, after all. Just to see if he could. He had no intention of actually _stealing_ the damn thing.)

Marco takes his sweet time figuring out who Eren is. 

Even if his heart pounds and his fingers tremble with secondhand adrenaline, even if he finds himself burying his face in his hands and bemoaning Eren’s frequently terrible decision-making, Marco finds himself falling harder and harder with every adventure he soaks in.

Rainy winter warms into rainy spring when Marco’s finally read all of Eren’s journals a handful of times apiece. He’s read between all the lines and scanned through all the stuck-together, lived-in pages of Eren’s journals, familiarized himself with how quickly Eren thinks, how vividly he feels, the kinds of places and people he likes the most. 

It’s still not a complete picture, though. 

Eren never talks about his time between adventures. No matter how long or short the breaks are, that time always seems to escape his thoughts once he sets foot on undiscovered soil. 

There’s no names or information for anyone besides his embassy contact in D.C., no mention of the people he stayed with or the things he did between trips, no letters or records of phone calls or anything. It’s as if the weeks and months between journals just... don’t exist.

There’s also the matter of his travel companions. Or rather, the general lack thereof.

For the most part, it seems that Eren joins up with other travelers if he really needs to, or if he’s looking at a long stretch of hiking without much to do. Otherwise, Eren travels solo, but he never really talks about being lonely or bored or anything. If anything, it seems like he prefers to be alone, which wouldn’t have fazed Marco much in the early days of their friendship. After all, he’d been under the (very mistaken) impression that Eren’s a lone wolf type.

Now, knowing what Eren’s like, how much he enjoys telling stories and having conversations about anything and everything, Marco’s genuinely surprised.

In his early journals, Eren mentions two regular companions here and there, some people he made fast friends with at some point before he started traveling and who seemed to be more than capable of keeping up with him, no matter how fast-paced or hyperactive he was. 

As some point in Thailand a few years ago, though, he just... stops talking about them. There’s a terrible storm, then a long gap between entries, and then Armin and Mikasa are never mentioned again.

Marco has to wonder who they were to him, what happened to them, but he gets the feeling that he’ll never quite gather the strength to ask. Not at the risk of having to watch Eren relive a potentially traumatic memory.

\--

Although finding the journals has completely solidified Marco’s faith that Eren will find his way back, depression comes in a wave around the end of April.

With nothing left to unearth and Eren’s journals half-memorized, Marco finds himself wistfully retracing their careful, dancing steps around and around his apartment, drifting farther and farther into his imagination as he desperately gathers up the fading brilliance of Eren’s sunny grins in shaking fingers. 

Boundless optimism doesn’t stop Marco from missing Eren more than a little painfully.

He finds himself longing for the brief warmth of Eren’s chest against his, of his rough palms on Marco’s cheeks, of his lips pressed sweetly to his. Marco dreams of that kiss, that one tiny, insufficient kiss more frequently than he’ll ever admit. He dreams of New Year’s Eve and the spark of Eren’s magic on his tongue, and he dreams of that rainy evening in his bathroom when Eren had freely offered him everything.

Mostly, though, he finds himself dwelling on Eren’s easy smiles, on the way he’d settled into Marco’s nest without complaint and without judgment. He dwells on how Eren’s restlessness had slowly petered out as he grew more comfortable, as if being safely within Marco’s space had soothed his anxious spirit. He dwells on how _happy_ Eren had looked to be there.

Marco’s in a near-constant state of pining, that much is true. The frequent company of friends can’t quite bridge the gap to the feeling that he misses so badly, not even with Jean’s harmlessly energetic flirting. 

That particular vacancy is nothing new, though; if it was just a matter of being lonely, Marco would be fine. 

The problem now is that loneliness isn’t the only thing keeping him down anymore.

As hard as he’d been trying, Marco can’t go back to the way things were before Eren.

Before, he’d been content to think about the cosmos with all his free time. NASA publications, video feeds from the International Space Station, Neil deGrasse Tyson... all the things he used to immerse himself in to sate his curiosity no longer hold his interest. At least, not with the ferocious tenacity that they used to. He finds his attention slipping more quickly than ever now, leaving him spaced for hours at a time as his mind wanders aimlessly through wild, unfamiliar landscapes, as he lingers on the hazy shadows of possibilities just barely out of his reach. 

It’s clear that he needs some new hobbies, some kind of change of pace, but he’ll be damned if he even knows where to begin.

On a rainy Tuesday evening, Marco’s sprawled across the couch and listlessly scrolling through Netflix, paying less attention to the offerings on the screen and more to how his own fingers winding through his hair feel nothing like Eren’s, when a title he’s never noticed before catches his attention.

Well, less the title and more a word in the description: _Patagonia._

He squints as he sits up and leans toward his TV, reading the word over and over in his head and hearing nothing but Eren’s voice. _‘I should pretty much clear Patagonia by the end of May,_ ’ Eren had said, and Marco had been so distracted by the then-distant timeline of Eren’s travels that he hadn’t realized that he doesn’t even know what Patagonia _is._

Without a second thought, Marco puts the documentary on.

\--

In a word, Patagonia is _beautiful._

Sparsely populated, partially owned by Sylvester Stallone, and endangered by corporate industrialization, but so perfect and so wild that Marco can easily envision Eren right at home climbing through all the rolling wide shots. He can see him splashing barefoot through crystal streams, chatting with indigenous fishermen, stopping to learn a few new words or make a few new friends. 

Marco had never truly realized how gorgeous the earth beneath his own feet really is. He’s always been a stargazer, an imaginary spaceman, his gaze trained upward and his interest cast out into the dark, glittering expanse impossibly far from his own fumbling grasp. The further his imagination could take him, the better. He’s always been more taken with the possibility of cold red stars and tidally-locked silicon planets, always wondering what those faraway sands might feel like shifting beneath his feet. 

Even now, watching documentary after documentary about all the places along Eren’s projected journey, Marco still finds his gaze trailing to the quiet comfort of the heavens. This time, though, rather than staring straight past the endless blue right in front of him, his eye is drawn to the sharp contrast of rock and snow wreathed in cloud far above gentle, grassy slopes, to wind-drawn waves crested in pale seafoam, the sea casting a perfect mirror image of the sky. 

These places he finds look more like paintings than reality. They’re _unbelievable._ He’s never seen sunsets like the ones that flare from the TV screen and ignite the stale air in his grey apartment, nor stretches of the uninhabited wild lying so peacefully beyond the notice of the rest of the world.

By the end of May, Marco’s completely cleaned the internet out of travel documentaries on South America, and he’s never wanted to run away from Seattle so badly.

\--

“So go,” Jean says casually, his tongue poking out between his teeth as he throws sharpened pencils into the cheap ceiling tiles like darts.

Lifting his head from Jean’s desk, Marco pins him with his best ‘are you insane’ stare. “What?” 

“Go.” Once he’s run out of pencils, the blonde kicks his feet off his desk, then leans toward Marco and stares right back. “You need a change of pace, and you wanna see something new, right? Put two and two together, man. Take a page out of your boy’s book. Live a little.”

“Jean, I wouldn’t even know where to _begin,_ ” Marco groans, burying his face in his forearms again. “I’ve been here my whole life, I don’t know how to travel. I mean, I’m almost _thirty,_ for god’s sake, I can’t just pick up and start doing crazy stuff just like that.”

“Why not?” Jean leans his chin in his palm. One of his pencils falls out of the ceiling and lands in his empty takeout tray.

With a loud groan, Marco leans back in his commandeered chair and scrubs his hands down his face, forcing down the rest of his usual excuses. Jean’s heard them all before, anyway.

Over the last few months, they’ve grown much closer, and Jean turns out to be a much more reliable friend than one might initially expect. He also has a keen eye for which of Marco’s pants suit his ass best, which has certainly informed most of the brunette’s recent wardrobe purchases. They usually take their lunches together when they can swing it, complaining or telling jokes or whatever. Marco doesn’t _always_ gripe about how severe his wanderlust is getting, but when he does, Jean’s more than willing to lend his ear.

Later that day, when Marco’s idly doodling on his pad of post-its again, Jean’s words echo around in his head, closely followed by the vivid memory of Eren’s endlessly encouraging smiles.

Even doing something as simple as leaving Seattle seems terrifying to Marco. He doesn’t even really know how to pack a suitcase, for god’s sake. However, if he learned anything at all from Eren’s brief stay, it’s that the things that scare him aren’t always as impossible as they seem.

Before he leaves for the day, Marco gets an email from human resources reminding him that he has to use his yet-untouched vacation time before the end of the fiscal year or he’ll lose it.

\--

According to Google, the Grand Canyon is about a twenty hour drive from Seattle. South by a thousand miles and some change.

He doesn’t know why he chose there of all places, but it’s wildly different from the rainy evergreen landscape of Washington, and it’s somewhere he’s never been.

Sure, there are plenty of documentaries he could watch, endless piles of information and pictures and videos all across the internet. Now that the idea has taken hold, though, Marco can’t find a good enough excuse to settle for high-definition wide shots. Not when he could just... see it himself. 

It’s not a distant galaxy, nor a remote planet, nor even a different _country,_ but it’s something new, and it’s something he picked himself. It’s something that’s within his grasp for once. If nothing else, it’ll be interesting. A change of pace.

Over the course of a few nights, he lays down the framework of a plan and sets to filling it in. He approaches things a bit more cautiously than he’d seen Eren do, but he still follows in his knowledgeable footsteps, using ideas he picked up during late nights curled up on the couch behind him, listening to him murmur in a handful of different languages as he scanned through his musty, questionable old books. 

As Marco’s plans start solidifying, he comes to the unnerving realization that planning a road trip isn’t really that hard. It certainly isn’t as intimidating as he’d made it out to be, not once he gets into the swing of things. He might’ve even been able to do it without the welcome spirit of Eren’s enthusiasm guiding him, had he had the right sort of inspiration. 

Once he makes his way through all the overpriced, overcrowded touristy stuff and sorts out the directions and accommodations and all, he starts wondering if it’s not _too_ easy, if maybe he’s skipping steps somewhere or neglecting some vital component of travel preparation.

After several stressful cycles of overthinking things, frantically wondering what he forgot, and trying to convince himself that there’s no way it could actually be this easy, Marco throws his hands up and decides to just _do_ it. Trying to preemptively account for every possible misstep is just going to drive him crazy if he keeps it up. If he stumbles across a hitch in his plans along the way, he’ll just have to deal with it right then. 

What is there to lose?

\--

“Sorry, Mr. Smith. I know it’s really short notice,” Marco says, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

“It’s _fine,_ Marco,” his laid-back boss hums. “You haven’t taken a vacation since you started here. HR was starting to complain.”

“I guess I never really had a reason to,” Marco replies, idly glancing around the office. Erwin Smith is a man of relatively simple tastes, aside from the vast array of strange, colorful cacti lining the windowsill. That, and the mandatory corporate motivational eagle poster carefully stuck where no one ever has to look at it.

“Doing anything fun?”

Startled out of his meandering thoughts, Marco turns back to his boss and nods. “I’m planning a road trip to the Grand Canyon.”

Raising an eyebrow, Erwin turns to his computer and pulls up the calendar. “From June 16th to the 22nd, right? Is that enough time?”

“Oh, more than enough, I think. It’s not as long a drive as one might think.”

“Well, if you need a few extra days, just call.”

Marco nods gratefully, then stands up to edge out. “I appreciate it, Mr. Smith.”

“Not a problem.” Nodding again, Marco turns and scoots out of Erwin’s office, but before he gets very far, he hears, “Oh, Bodt?”

He turns and pokes his head back in. “Yes?”

“If you pass through Salt Lake City, I would suggest buying a five-pound bag of saltwater taffy from Taffy Town.”

Marco raises his eyebrows. “... Five pounds.”

Erwin nods, looking remarkably ashamed as he closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’ll never be able to make eye contact with your dentist again, but it is very much worth it.”

Somehow managing to hold back his laughter, Marco nods and thanks his boss again before he goes back to his desk. After he’s sent Jean a few excited texts about his vacation time being approved, and maybe one or two about his boss’s apparent sweet tooth, he leans back in his chair and takes a long, deep breath.

Actually asking for the time off was the last unchecked box on his long list of preparations, and one he’d been dreading slightly. Given that he’s never asked for time off before despite having plenty of vacation days every year, Marco hadn’t known what to expect. He found himself pleasantly surprised by Erwin’s willingness to accommodate his relatively sudden plans. Now, the only thing standing between Marco and the Grand Canyon is time.

In two weeks, Marco turns twenty-seven, and he’s going to celebrate by finally going on an adventure of his own. 

\--

Catalyzed by anxious anticipation, the time passes surprisingly quickly compared to the sluggish haze that had settled once Eren left.

By the night before his birthday, Marco has packed and repacked his suitcase no less than three times, checked the weather a dozen more times, printed out directions twice (just in case his phone explodes, or there’s no cell signal, or he forgets that it’s 1200 miles straight down the damn interstate), and talked himself in and out of the whole thing more times than he cares to admit.

The thing that trips him up the most is that he’s still not entirely sure why he’s doing this to begin with. It’s not like he has something to prove, not that he’s aware of. He’s just restless and bored of the life he’s lived up until now, bored of Seattle, and once he really thinks about it, he’s not sure how much of that is actually Eren’s fault.

After all, it’s not like Eren fundamentally _changed_ him, not really. He just pressed buttons that were already there, well-hidden under layer upon layer of responsible grownup bullshit. 

Marco has lived his life as a series of steps, of processes. For as long as he can remember, he’s had a clear plan for his pursuit of happiness, and he’s stuck by it absolutely. He had to graduate high school, then he had to graduate college, then he had to get a job, then he had to find a boyfriend, then he had to start a family, then...

Then he had to grow old and die.

With the big gold-star landmarks out of the way, Marco was faced with something like sixty years with only a few major things left on his to-do list, and up to that point, he’d lived his life with no goal other than checking things off that list. He didn’t take risks or wander aimlessly, nor was he ever terribly impulsive before now. He just wanted to be stable, and in his journey toward stability, he fell into a rut of normal, normal, maddening unfaltering _normal._ He was too careful for too long, always a creature of habit.

Eren never tried to change that aspect of Marco’s character, never challenged his boring habits or his lack of life experience. He didn’t do anything but fly in and knock Marco a few inches off that well-worn track. 

Still, the jolt was enough to wake him up, and even though he’s lived his entire life as a tired series of ‘what next,’ he can’t just go back to ignoring the wide world of terrifying opportunities surrounding him. This time, he can’t sleep through the months of sitting and waiting patiently for Eren to come back. He’s too curious now, too conscious of the world outside his insulated little bubble. 

For the first time, not only is the path immediately ahead unclear, Marco finds that when he actually looks at it with clear eyes, he doesn’t really like where it ends up.

He could wait like he always has, finding ways of killing time until Eren wanders back to Seattle, to Marco’s arms once more, but what then? How long until it’s time for Eren to leave again, until it’s time to wait again, hoping for a taste of his secondhand wildfire? How long until Marco becomes a creature made entirely of borrowed memories and hollow stories?

Marco’s tired of waiting to live. He’s tired of relying on other people to fuel his imagination.

He’s ready to get up and _do_ something.

Diverging from his safe path is risky, to be sure, but it’s also infinitely more interesting. All he needed in the end was Eren’s inspiration and encouragement, and one last firm push from Jean.

\--

When he wakes up early on June 16th, his heart’s already racing.

Aside from boring Maine, this trip will be the farthest from home Marco’s ever been. No more living through his TV or the internet or Eren’s journals. 

He’s _terrified._

No one would know if he didn’t go, Marco thinks frantically, jingling his keys in his empty kitchen. He could just watch a documentary or two and spend his vacation here instead, safe and sound in the well-known comfort of his own home.

No one would know but him.

Marco turns and looks at his TV over his shoulder, his teeth digging into his lip. He’s lived all his other adventures through that screen, after all. What’s one more?

Taking a deep breath, Marco decides that if he’s going to watch a documentary with the intent of making up a story to tell, he’s going to need coffee. It’s still early, after all. And since it’s his birthday, he probably deserves something extravagant, a luxury beyond pre-ground breakfast blend. Maybe something terrible and sugary from Starbucks. 

Maybe he should take his suitcase down to his car, too, just in case a wave of inspiration hits and he decides to go after all. That way he doesn’t have to carry it down later. Yeah.

Patting the pockets of his jeans to check for his wallet and his phone, Marco nods to himself and grabs his suitcase. 

Just a Starbucks run. That’s all.

\--

As Marco merges onto the southbound interstate, he resolves to never tell anyone that he had to bribe himself into a road trip with a mocha frappucino.

Well, maybe one day he’ll tell Eren. Maybe.

\--

It doesn’t take Marco long to figure out that distance driving isn’t terribly eventful. He puts on the cruise control and settles himself in the middle lane, and with that he’s set for the next thousand miles. Aside from the radio and the hum of the engine and the sound of his tires on the asphalt, it’s fairly quiet. 

For the most part, he lets his mind wander as far as he feels is safe while he’s behind the wheel. He thinks about work for a while, then about movies, then about Patagonia. He thinks about Eren, probably bouncing around Tierra del Fuego by now. He thinks about Eren, wondering if Eren’s thinking about him too. He thinks about Eren smiling tearfully and leaning in to kiss him, his silhouette angelic in the fierce light of the winter sun. He thinks about Eren staring up at him with dark eyes, his hands resting warm and gentle on the backs of Marco’s thighs...

Marco has plenty to occupy his thoughts while he drives.

Most of the day is spent surrounded by mountains and towering evergreens, but he had expected that. It’s still nice to see, though, so different from the neatly-kept city sprawl of Seattle. The road winds and curves enough to keep his attention, but not so much that he has to focus or he’ll die. It’s soothing in a way, worlds apart from his usual day-to-day. When he’s driving, he has no choice but to sit and do nothing, so it doesn’t feel like time wasted to just think for a few hours.

By the time he stops for lunch and more coffee, Marco’s come to the conclusion that he _does_ actually have something to prove with this trip. Not to anyone but himself, of course, but that’s more than enough reason to keep going.

He needs to prove to himself that he hasn’t been broken by years of repetitive motion.

This trip isn’t tiny, sure, but it’s nothing compared to some of the faraway places that have caught his interest through Eren’s journals. Interest alone had never been enough to move him, though, and until now, he’d just assumed that there’s no way he could ever _make_ those trips. He’d lived in the cool shade of the belief that he’s incapable, that he’s a coward, that he’s too indecisive or too weak. 

By doing this, taking this road trip, he can start down the path of proving himself wrong.

Noble as it sounds, that’s not the only reason he needs to do this.

Marco also needs to prove to himself that he’s not just chasing Eren’s legacy. 

Eren never tried to change him, that much Marco knows. But he absolutely inspired him, whether he meant to or not. He encouraged him and he showed him unseen paths, but at the end of the day, he still led Marco to the door to the unknown and then left him alone to open it himself. Given how long Marco’s been on the same dull path, of course it’d be almost impossible for him to actually reach out and open it without some kind of kick in the ass.

Luckily, Jean’s always been more blunt than your average person. 

Between the two of them and his own burning restlessness, Marco’s out the door, but that is far from sufficient for him. 

He’s holding his fate in his own two hands for once, all too aware of how linear, how unremarkable it seems now that he’s looking at it in a new light. Now that he can see all too clearly the glaring flaws in his path, however, he can also see a whole host of ways to change it. To change himself.

Jean had playfully accused him of falling victim to some kind of stereotypical wild-child romance, the kind where the unremarkable twenty-something guy gets all shaken up and displaced and the girl holds his hand and shapes him into something new, into something more like herself, and like it or not, Marco can see where he’d get the idea. Eren is free, a flickering wildfire unbound and unlimited by anything but the wind and the earth. He’s an unchained ideal.

That’s not what Eren thinks, though.

In his own eyes, Eren is weighed down by fear and by loneliness. A tramp, a nomad, rootless and fruitless as he rolls from place to place and takes up other people’s precious time and energy. A lost little animal, convinced over time that he’s worthless and undeserving.

Despite his own stilted and honestly horrifying view of himself, though, Eren still flares hot, energetic and wildly unpredictable, blazing through silent nights just for the sake of seeing the dim earth painted in the complex, brilliant colors of the radiant starlight he carries within him. He burns so brightly that he leaves a mark on the people he meets, people who have seen firsthand what his world is like. The mark he left on Marco is unforgettable, a warm, constant reminder of how beautiful the world is when Eren’s firelight casts it into sharp technicolor relief, of how beautiful the world could be if Marco too rises from the ashes of his own dull grey fate. 

Without a glimpse of Eren’s welcome chaos, who knows how long it would’ve taken Marco to realize that he was honestly unhappy in the dark. It would have happened eventually, he knows that much. One day, he would’ve woken up and realized that he’d left little or no lasting mark on his world. 

One day, Marco still would’ve woken up and realized that he didn’t matter.

However, thanks to Eren’s gentle enlightenment, intentional or not, Marco has a chance to change that. He has a chance to change himself, to do something that really makes him happy, rather than something purely for the sake of sustainability. 

He’s not willing to let that chance go to waste. 

If it’s not already too late, that is.

By taking Eren’s inspiration and using it as fuel for an adventure of his own design, maybe Marco can prove to himself that it’s not too late for him to change. Maybe it’s not too late to see the world alight in his own vivid spectrum of starlight, to come back down to planet earth and live here as he’s always imagined living on other worlds. Maybe he can change for himself, for his own sake.

At this point, falling in love with Eren was secondary. Marco would still want to change even if he wasn’t head over heels for the person that showed him a kaleidoscope world of beautiful possibilities. He would still want his own stories to be proud of, his own unique memories and experiences.

Falling in love with Eren just means that Marco has a good idea of who he wants to _share_ these experiences with.

It also means that he sees Eren for what he really is, rather than the scuffed, dented image Eren has of himself, that other people can’t seem to get past. He sees his brilliance, his liveliness, the incredible warmth and strength under all the dirt, and he wants nothing more than for Eren to see it for himself.

But first, before any great metaphorical metamorphoses can happen for either of them, Marco has to go stand on a cliff a thousand miles from home for no good reason other than because he _can._

\--

When the sun sets, Marco’s somewhere in the middle of Utah, and it is _dark._ There are no street lights out here, barely any rest stops, no cities or towns or farms or even secret government facilities. It’s just dry desert grass and shrubby little hills, beige plains bordered by dark, unintimidating mountains in the far distance.

It’s boring, and once the sun fades out entirely, it is also more than a little unnerving.

Marco doubts he’s ever been somewhere so damn dark in his entire life. 

He’s been driving for something like fifteen hours already, his head a steady stream of vaguely present consciousness, and even though he’s not particularly tired, he still pulls off at a dingy, scary-looking rest stop so he can at least relax for a while. Stretch his legs, close his eyes, all that.

After he’s used the restroom, refilled his water bottles, and jogged a few good laps around the little concrete building, Marco curls up in the backseat of his car, and it’s then that he discovers the unexpected benefit to Utah’s vast and crushing darkness.

_Stars._

Not like the scattered few visible over Seattle, not like the faint constellations he could see over his childhood home.

The moon is but a faint sliver, but once his eyes adjust, Marco realizes that he can see just fine by the starlight alone.

It’s _incredible._

Marco moves to sprawl on top of his car, the thin metal still warm from a long day of relentless summer sun, and he spends several hours just watching the universe roam above him.

It’s a relief to know that the cosmos still set his heart racing, even if studying them from the safety of his dull living room has lost some of its enchantment recently. He’s changed, sure, but he’s not changed beyond all recognition. He’s still _Marco,_ and that knowledge allows his overworked mind to rest.

\--

He’d known going in that the bits and pieces of actually _getting_ to the Grand Canyon were going to be a pain in the ass. There’s parking, shuttles to other shuttles, and fees of every kind. Marco had been prepared for that, though.

It’s only when he’s faced down with the grim reality of the situation that he realizes that he’s at the Grand Canyon on a Saturday morning in the middle of June.

It is _hell._

The only thing keeping Marco from losing his mind at this point is the sweet mercy of his earbuds. He finds himself significantly more sympathetic toward Eren’s ignorance of tourism laws about the nine hundredth time someone steps on his foot. At this point, he would absolutely risk getting shot if it meant having some room to breathe comfortably, although it wouldn’t help much with the heat. At least he’d had the good sense to wear shorts and bring water.

\--

When he finally stumbles off the overcrowded shuttle at a fun-sounding viewpoint, he manages to make his way to the last steel railing at the very edge of the known world, and all at once all the waiting and pushing and sweating is so, _so_ worth it. 

He suddenly understands all too well Eren’s speechlessness on his travels. Marco doesn’t think he actually knows enough words in any language to describe the view from Yaki Point in a way that would ever do it justice.

It’s endless, the canyon, a jagged, fractured scar splitting the earth on a scale Marco’s only ever briefly considered in his lengthy imaginings of far-distant planets. All the worlds he’s brought to life in fiction, all the suns and moons and brilliantly detailed skyscapes he’s ever pondered in all his years combined don’t even come close. 

Marco stands now on the edge of a landscape more fantastic than he ever expected to find anywhere in the dark corners of the universe, and it’s been sleeping right here for eons, waiting for him to just... reach out and touch it.

It almost doesn’t seem real. Everything’s so orderly, so _even,_ thick layers of rock and sky and cloud, on and on forever like the world is made of nothing else. Brightly-striped cliffs rise in steep slopes only to be suddenly and dramatically leveled, forming impossibly flat mesas cut off in perfect, silent agreement with the boundaries of the painted sky. Even in the broad light of midday, shadows flicker all through the rocks, trickling between sharp edges and pooling under rough outcroppings, breathing strange alien life into the still, vacant chasm cracking open beneath the immeasurable weight of the heavens.

The daunting scale is nothing if not humbling. Logically, he knows that the canyon doesn’t actually extend across the entire planet, but as he stands a reverent speck atop the ageless earth, it puts up a damn good argument.

Marco finds somewhere to sit beneath the bare shade of a twisted desert tree, and for a long while, he doesn’t move. He just looks.

\--

He’s long since stopped noticing the coming and going of other tourists when the shrill blast of his ringtone cuts deafeningly through the calm lilt of his music. Marco jolts with a startled squeak, caught completely off-guard, and slaps his hand against his pocket.

When he pulls his phone out, he silences the ringer quickly, squinting down at the caller ID showing an unknown number before he answers.

“Hello?”

A soft, shivering sigh breathes through his earbuds, the sound inexplicably relieved, and Marco furrows his brow just as the person speaks up.

“H-hey, Marco.”

The world spins slightly, blurring the fiery cliffs with the pale edges of the sky.

“... Eren?”

A rough laugh, then, “Yeah. Hi.”

Marco can’t help but clutch his phone to his chest, his tired eyes sliding closed and a wide grin melting across his face. “Hi.”

The whole time Eren’s been gone, Marco’s been diligently keeping a list. Things to ask him, things to talk to him about, things to tell him. It’s probably far too long, but he hopes Eren wouldn’t mind. Even lost in his endless introspection, he always finds things he wants to say whenever they meet again.

Now, just like every time before, his reserves of conversation topics dissolve into vapor in Eren’s presence, even the pale mimicry of him that the phone provides.

There’s a brief silence, maybe awkward, maybe not, and when Marco finally coaxes his heart down out of his throat, he clears it and says, “It’s nice to hear your voice.”

“You too,” Eren says, quiet and tired. “You sound good.”

“Thanks.”

Eren hums, then clears his throat, the sound of his restless shifting coming through cloaked in soft static. “How, uh. How are you?”

“Oh, um,” Marco mumbles, sitting up straight as he sets his phone in his lap again. “I’m good! Hot, but good.”

“Mm, I’m jealous,” Eren chuckles, and Marco’s vision swims with a familiar pink tint. “It’s getting cold down here. Is it raining up there, too? I swear it never stops in Seattle.”

Marco blinks up at the light, puffy clouds, then out at the blazing red rocks before him. “Oh. I’m not sure.”

Snorting slightly, Eren teases, “What, you board up your windows? Cloud cover getting too depressing?”

“Not quite,” Marco laughs. “Actually, you’ll never guess where I am.”

“Oh?”

His chest swelling with pride, Marco says, “I’m at the Grand Canyon.”

The line goes silent for a long moment, just long enough to make Marco sweat before Eren finally breathes, “Really?”

“Yep. I took a vacation for my birthday a few days ago, decided to do something new and unusual.” Smiling warmly, Marco wraps the cord to his headphones around and around his finger. “My friend Jean said I should take a page out of your book.”

“You—” Eren cuts himself off with an audible swallow, his fidgety static flaring up for a moment. “Huh?”

“I, um,” Marco starts, blinking out over the canyon as he chews idly on the cord. “I found your journals, the ones you left for me?” He swears he can _hear_ Eren blushing. Cute. “That was really incredible of you, by the way. Thank you. It means a lot to me.”

Eren’s best response is a series of mute, flustered noises, which wrings a terribly affectionate giggle out of Marco. 

“And yeah, so I read them all a few times, and I guess they inspired me or something. So, here I am.”

“At the Grand Canyon.”

“Yeah.”

“Ah... that’s amazing, Marco,” Eren sighs, the softness to his voice carrying clearly a little smile. “I’ve never actually been there. How is it?”

Raising his eyebrows incredulously, Marco blurts, “Wait, you’ve never been here?”

“Nope.”

“Wow,” Marco laughs, unable to keep himself from grinning as excitement bubbles all through his chest. “The tables have turned.”

“So it seems. Hope you keep better journals than I do.”

“I’ll take some crappy cell phone pictures for you.”

As Eren laughs warmly, Marco leans into the sweet sound, his eyes shuttering closed and his smile widening again. “Much obliged. Is it fun?”

“It’s so beautiful, Eren,” Marco murmurs, breathing a soft, content sigh. He doesn’t miss the faint hitch to Eren’s even breath, even as tiny as it is. “I’m so glad I came. I never would’ve done this if not for you, you know.”

“I-I dunno about that,” Eren wheezes.

“No, it’s true.” Chewing on the cord again, Marco lowers his gaze to the smooth stone path beneath his feet, tracing dry lines of short weeds around and around. “Even if I did ever get around to it, it’d be years and years from now. I’m not exactly the bravest person around. You set a good example, though. Bullet holes and all.”

“Marco...”

“Thank you, Eren.”

There’s another long pause then, broken only by canyon wind and Eren’s shuffling.

“I miss you, Marco.” Eren’s voice is almost silent now, breathed like a secret cracked and vulnerable, and Marco’s heart swells and flips over his tender words. The rush is dizzying. “I, uh. I think about you a lot.”

“Me too,” Marco whispers, curling over his phone and closing his eyes once more. “God, me too.” 

Eren clears his throat again. “I’m, um. Still in Ushuaia for now. B-but I’m thinking of flying back soon.”

“O-oh?”

“Yeah...”

Swallowing heavily, Marco asks, “Where to?”

“I’m... I’m not sure yet.” The faint sound of Eren’s leg bouncing agitatedly. “Any ideas?”

“Eren...”

“I-I’m open to suggestions.”

Marco eyes flood with tears, so he scrubs his hands down his face and takes a few deep breaths. 

He knows it’s selfish to ask, but dammit, Eren kissed him and bolted, and now he’s holed up on some landline at the southern tip of the world and practically _begging_ for Marco to ask. Maybe he feels like he can’t ask either, so tangled up in his terrible self-image and his belief that he’s a burden.

Well, Marco’s on a bravery streak anyway.

“Eren... will you come back to Seattle?” He doesn’t even try to keep his voice from shaking. Let Eren hear his vulnerability in return, his raw honesty. “You don’t have to, and you don’t have to stay, but... you know I always have a place for you.”

Eren gives a loud, heavy sigh, his own breath shaking in perfect time with Marco’s.

“Yes,” he whispers. “Y-yeah, I’ll come back.”

Marco’s heart _soars._ He tries to pour all the gratitude he can into his weak reply, his sparse words trembling with it. “Thank you, Eren.”

“Tell me all about the Grand Canyon when I get there, okay?”

“O-okay.” Sniffling quietly, Marco wipes a few tears off his cheeks as a smile crawls across his face once more. “Please travel safely.”

“I will. I’ll, um. I’ll call you when I know times and dates and shit.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Licking his dry lips, Marco lets the conversation come to an end, but before Eren can say goodbye, Marco murmurs, “Hey, Eren?”

“Yeah?”

“I—” 

_I love you._

A long second ticks through the echo of words left unsaid. As true as they are, as fiercely as he feels them, Marco still lets them die on his tongue, weakly substituting his confession with, “I’m excited to see you.”

Eren hums softly. “Me too. See you, Marco.”

“Bye, Eren.”

“Bye.”

Marco listens for the telltale rustle and click of the receiver, but even when his screen lights up and shows that the call is done, he spends a long while staring at his phone before he moves again.


	6. Little Wanderer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven long months of waiting finally pay off, and true to form, Eren brings with him a whirlwind of the unexpected.
> 
> "You’re my wanderer, [little wanderer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io9ivuo4r6Q)  
> Off across the sea  
> You’re my wanderer, little wanderer  
> Won’t you wander back to me  
> Back to me"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://avoidingavoidance.tumblr.com)
> 
> i'm sorry this took so long hrnghhhh i hit a pretty brutal block and tbh i'm still deeply deeply unhappy with parts of this, so any feedback y'all might have for me would go a long way ; ;

“Man,” Jean sighs, resting his elbows on his knees as he clicks through the pictures on Marco’s laptop screen. “I swear it looks the same as when I went, like, fifteen years ago.”

“I hear erosion is a slow process,” Marco snickers. Jean rolls his eyes, then reaches over without looking to pinch Marco’s ticklish ribs, letting the brunette slap his hand away with a squawk. 

As he watches his friend look through his pictures from the Grand Canyon, Marco crosses his legs beneath him on his couch, idly sipping his beer. There’s a lot more of them than he remembers taking, but Jean doesn’t seem to mind, making sure to look at each one as he flicks through. He laughs softly at the few shy, dorky-looking selfies Marco had taken, but he doesn’t tease him. It’s probably fairly obvious who the intended audience is, anyway.

Every time Marco thinks about Eren’s excellently-timed phone call, he can’t help but float away a little. He remembers exactly how Eren had sounded, his voice soft and intimate and so, so content, his warmth bleeding through the airwaves and curling right into Marco’s ears, leaving him dazed and almost giddy. 

He still hasn’t called back about flights, but it’s only been a few days since they spoke, so Marco isn’t surprised. While he waits, he’s gotten good at doing the math to Eren’s time zone, always adding four hours to the ones he spends daydreaming so he knows what time it is where his thoughts land at the southernmost tip of the world. 

“You really like this, uh, bush thing?” Jean asks, startling Marco out of his dozy thoughts. He blinks over at Jean, then at the picture of blurry shrub roots on his screen, one of several like it that he’d taken.

“Oh, no,” Marco mumbles, leaning forward to flick back through the other ones. Humming thoughtfully, he runs a hand through his hair and says, “No, I saw a really weird thing and tried to take a picture of it, but for some reason all the pictures came out blurry or washed out.”

Jean raises his eyebrows, blinking down at the shrub again. “What, like a weird beetle?”

“No...” Marco sighs quietly and fidgets with the neck of his beer as he thinks. “I don’t, uh. Don’t really know what it was. I just kinda looked down and there it was.”

Leaning back into the couch, Jean sips his own beer and waits patiently as Marco nibbles on his lip, trying to find the words to describe the utterly impossible thing he saw.

“It sounds so crazy,” Marco laughs eventually, letting his head fall back so he can stare at the ceiling. 

“Desert’s full of weird shit, man,” Jean says, shrugging casually. “I lived in Arizona most of my life and I still can’t explain half the weird animals I saw skittering around. Like, say what you will, but I have seen more than my fair share of two-headed lizards.”

Marco snorts and shakes his head, but he absolutely believes it. Somehow, he’s started believing in a whole lot of really strange things lately. “Yeah, but this is, like. _Super_ super weird.”

“Try me.”

“Okay,” he sighs, scratching behind his ear as he squints one eye over at Jean. “It... it kinda looked like a little pink jellyfish.”

Jean’s brow furrows. “What, like. A dead one?” Marco shakes his head. “A live one.” A sheepish nod. “Huh.”

“Yeah,” Marco sighs, idly peeling the label off his bottle. “It was just... floating around under that bush, I guess. I couldn’t get it to hold still for a picture, and for whatever reason, the video I took was all out of focus and full of artifacts.”

“And here I thought iPhones were supposed to have good cameras,” Jean snorts.

“They do!” Marco skips a few pictures back to a wide panoramic shot of the canyon to prove his point. “In the right light, they take insanely nice pictures. Just... not in this instance.”

Humming softly, Jean clicks forward again to the pictures after the weird jellyfish incident, which are just as high-quality as the ones before. “Huh.” Marco shrugs it off, leaning back again and letting him look at the rest of the pictures. Thankfully, Jean drops the subject, but now that he’s been reminded, Marco can’t help but dwell on it.

He knows that jellyfish don’t float in air, let alone waving chubby little tentacles and glowing pink. He’s not dumb. (Even so, he’d Googled it thoroughly just to be extra double super sure.)

Maybe he’d just been crazy from the heat, or from hearing Eren’s voice again.

Or maybe he’d seen something unexplainable.

Either way, Marco had carefully made note of it in his phone, just to make sure that he remembers to ask Eren about it.

\--

For the next few weeks, every time Marco’s phone rings, his heart slams straight up into his throat as he scrambles to answer it. His ringtone’s not even terribly startling, but anxious excitement is not an emotion that is easily tamed. Usually, it’s just a friend or family or a telemarketer or something, much to Marco’s dismay. 

On a balmy Thursday morning in mid-July, though, the voice filtering into his buzzing ears is none of those.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Marco,” Eren sighs, sounding just slightly out of breath.

“Eren!” Marco bolts up out of his chair and makes a few quick apologetic gestures at the temp worker shooting him an alarmed look. “H-hold on, uh, let me get somewhere I can talk.”

“Sure, yeah, okay.”

As he scoots away from the IT floor, his phone held to his chest, Marco sincerely hopes the mic doesn’t pick up the sound of his heart hammering against his sternum. He’s tingling with electricity, though, his hands already shaking with anticipation, and once he slides into a chair in the corner of the common area, he forces himself to take a few deep, steadying breaths before lifting his phone back to his ear.

“Eren, hi,” he breathes, trying not to sound _too_ worked up. “How are you?”

“Oh, me?” Eren bleats, laughing a little too loudly. Marco raises his eyebrows and listens harder, momentarily shoving aside his lovestruck glee so he can pay closer attention. “I’m, uh, good! Yeah, good, good.”

“Um,” Marco says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Are you okay?”

“Yes?” Eren clears his throat. “Yes. Hey, so, um. I know it’s, like, _super_ short notice and all, but it looks like I can be in Seattle on the 17th. Sunday?”

Marco couldn’t care less about the short notice. In fact, it could actually stand to be much shorter. “Great! Awesome,” he blurts. “Hold on, let me get something to write on...” As he digs a folded-up post-it out of his pocket, Marco squints and listens more closely, using Eren’s silence to check out the tinny background noise. Faint chatter, too muffled to discern, and a quick, steady beeping. Beeping? 

“I can, uh.” Eren clears his throat, his voice slightly tense. “How about I call you after I land and get everything sorted? I, uh. I’ll probably have a few things to take care of before I can make it over to your place, so.”

Blinking quickly, Marco tries to read Eren through the phone. It’s challenging at times in person, but from another continent, it’s almost impossible. “You, um. I can pick you up at the airport, if you want? It’s no trouble.”

There’s a brief, strained quiet before Eren croaks, “Wait, wh-what?”

Unable to help the small smile crossing his face, Marco rubs his finger over a little water spot on the table, familiar warmth melting through his chest. “I really don’t mind coming to get you from the airport, if you’re cool with that.”

“Like.” Eren swallows audibly, his voice almost disbelieving, small and so different in tone from how the conversation had started. “Like outside, or?”

“I mean, I haven’t been in an airport in twenty years, but I think they still let people into the baggage claim, right?”

Another pause, this one longer and weirder, staticky beeping filling the silence before Eren breathlessly mumbles, “He wants to pick me up at the airport.”

Marco blinks again, quirking an eyebrow. “Who are you talking to?”

“No one!” Eren laughs a little too loudly. “Just, uh. No one.”

“Okay...?” Shaking his head slightly, Marco leans his elbows on the table and listens harder. “Eren, are you _sure_ you’re okay?”

Eren sighs slowly, the sound fuzzy over the phone, before he murmurs, “Yeah.” He laughs again, soft and sweet this time, and continues, “Yeah. I’m, um. I’m really good.”

Before Marco can recover from the butterflies filling his stomach enough to reply, another voice filters over the beeping, but it’s still too muffled to catch exactly what’s being said. Eren grumbles in apparent response, then says, “Marco, you really don’t have to if it’s trouble. And it, uh. It probably will be.”

“That’s fine,” Marco assures, tugging his pen out from behind his ear. “Just tell me what flight you’ll be on and I’ll be there.”

“Marco...”

“I-if it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t.” Pausing to chew on the end of the pen, he waits for Eren to take his offered out. When he doesn’t, Marco hums, “Sorry, I’m just... I’m really excited to see you again, Eren.”

Eren swallows again and seems to struggle for his words for a minute, but he doesn’t sound annoyed or frustrated. Flustered, maybe. “H-hang on a sec,” he says, immediately followed by the sound of the receiver scraping over fabric. He must have moved the phone away from his mouth, but Marco can still faintly hear him when he asks, “What’s our flight info?” A pause. “Liar.” Marco raises his eyebrows. “You’re totally lying! It is not _classified,_ you’re just a wet sandwich. _Ow,_ owowow. _Please?”_

There’s a brief scuffle and the sound of Eren yelping, then somewhat frantic-sounding Spanish in the background. Marco’s starting to sweat slightly, given the rather suspicious sound of Eren’s situation. It only gets worse when Eren switches back to English and blurts, _“No,_ it’s my one phone call! I know my rights!”

Marco buries his face in his hand and takes a deep, steadying breath.

A good minute or so passes before Eren huffs noisily into the phone, sounding very much out of breath. “S-sorry, I, uh. Dropped it.”

“Dropped what?” 

“Uh.” Marco can _hear_ the gears turning in Eren’s head. He may actually be the worst liar on the planet. “The phone?”

“Uh-huh...”

“A-anyway, uh,” Eren continues loudly, shuffling through some papers. “You got a pen?”

“Oh, yeah, go ahead.”

Eren reads off the flight information, patiently letting Marco double- and triple-check it, and after Marco promises to keep tabs on the flight and find out what terminal Eren will be at, they fall again into a brief silence.

“I should, um,” Marco hums, running his finger along the wrinkled edge of the post-it. “I should get back to work...”

_“Oh,_ oh, yeah,” Eren replies quickly. “Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Licking his lips, Marco looks around the common area, feeling slightly like he’s checking for witnesses. There aren’t any. “It’s a slow day here, it’s really fine.”

“Right.”

Marco pauses again, extremely tempted to ask once more what’s going on with Eren. Knowing him, though, he’ll stammer something unconvincing and then change the subject anyway, so Marco decides to just put a pin in it for now. Instead, he chews on his thumbnail, listening again to the faint beeping in the background of the call, steady and rhythmic like a pulse.

“So, um. Sunday,” he says finally, biting his lip.

“Yeah.” Eren sighs again, then quietly asks, “It’s really okay with you?”

“What is?” Marco raises his eyebrows. “Picking you up at the airport?”

“Yeah...”

“Of course it is. More than okay. I mean, I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to.” Rubbing the back of his neck, he waffles for a moment, then continues, “I’m actually really looking forward to it, to be honest.”

“Me too,” Eren murmurs, his voice so goddamn vulnerable that Marco’s chest aches. “H-hey, I’ve gotta go, uh. Get some shit sorted. You know.”

“Oh, sure,” Marco says, sitting up again. “So, uh, I’ll see you Sunday?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Breathing a low, content chuckle, Eren hums, “See you then, Marco.”

“Bye, Eren. Travel safely.”

“I will try.”

After a moment, Marco’s phone beeps to signal the end of the call. Rather than stand and go back to his desk, though, Marco exhales slowly and leans his head down onto the table, and he stays there for a good few minutes before he moves again.

Try as he might, Marco can’t wipe the enormous grin off his face for the rest of the day, obnoxious tech calls or no.

\--

By noon on Saturday, Jean is entirely sick of Marco.

**From: Jean**   
i swear to god i’m gonna turn my phone off

**To: Jean**   
I’m sorry but TOMORROW!!!!!  
should I wear the grey pants???

**From: Jean**   
wear jeans you lunatic

**To: Jean**   
but butt

**From: Jean**   
your ass looks fantastic in jeans  
the dark wash ones not those weird old man jeans  
you’re seriously the most neurotic human being alive

**To: Jean**   
I haven’t seen him in seven months!  
SEVEN MONTHS.

**From: Jean**   
oh i am aware  
srsly dude you’re gonna be fine please find your chill  
deep breaths

**To: Jean**   
okay  
okay fine I’m chill

**From: Jean**   
uh huh

**To: Jean**   
!!!!!!!!!!!! TOMORROW JEAN TOMORROW

**From: Jean**   
fuck’s sake......

\--

Marco barely sleeps that night. Instead, he lies awake and imagines a trillion different scenarios for how tomorrow might go. 

When he finally drifts off, his racing thoughts all melt together to paint in sweet colors the dream of pulling Eren close to him, of burying his face in his soft hair and wrapping his arms around him, and of feeling Eren’s warm hands on his waist, holding him yet closer as the bustle of the baggage claim fades into nothingness around them.

\--

Even though Eren’s flight isn’t set to land until that evening (6:39 pm, to be exact), Marco finds himself struggling to stay in his apartment by noon. 

It’d be absurd (and possibly creepy) to go this early, and Marco knows that. He’d be bored out of his mind.

Still, he’s crawling out of his skin from the moment he wakes up. For his own sake, he skips his usual morning coffee, opting instead for ancient, untouched decaf tea from the back of his cupboard to go with the bagel that takes about two hours to eat.

He finds little ways of killing time, but he can’t focus on any of them for very long before the urge to get up and sprint around the block creeps back into his veins. 

It’s been a long time since Marco was this wired. Still, he can’t stop grinning, his excitement rolling over him in crashing waves.

\--

Somehow, Marco manages to hold out for most of the day, but he’s still firmly planted in the baggage claim by the time the clock hits six.

For a while, he sits relatively patiently by the towering windows, watching streams of people passing through, collecting their bags and greeting their friends and family. Some look exhausted, their posture and their eyes tired even in the embraces of their loved ones; some look as keyed up as he is, shuffling quickly into each other’s arms and laughing loudly, excitedly. 

He wonders which one Eren will be. It’s hard to imagine him being travel-weary, but it _is_ a twelve-hour flight at best. At least, so the internet had told him.

People-watching keeps Marco occupied for as long as anything else he’s done so far today, so it’s not long before he’s restlessly wandering the lengthy baggage claim, his hands stuffed in his pockets, fingers wrapped tightly around his phone. He stands by the carousel for American Airlines for a few minutes, then wanders past the escalators leading toward domestic flights, then swings back around until he hits the escalators for international flights, before he checks his crumpled post-it for the trillionth time and walks back to the carousel.

When the flight number matching his shaking scrawl pops up on the screen above the unmoving luggage belt, Marco has to take a deep, wheezy breath so he doesn’t pass out on the spot.

As he waits, he checks his note a few more times, then bounces on the balls of his feet while he scans through the crowds, searching for a familiar head of shaggy hair as his heart pounds and his palms sweat.

His phone vibrates in his pocket right as the carousel buzzes noisily and starts spinning again, and Marco barely manages to choke down a yelp as he yanks his phone out and struggles to unlock the screen with badly-shaking hands.

It’s just Jean.

**From: Jean**   
so didja get him yet

Marco groans and runs his hand through his hair, exhaling slowly to get his blood pressure back under control.

Before he replies to the text, he looks up and scans the crowds once more, and the wave of people gathering closer parts just enough for him to catch a glimpse of wide, wild green, and Marco’s heart stops altogether.

Seven months.

It’s been seven months since they saw each other last, since Marco felt the light and warmth of fire, and this time, that expanse of time seems to mean everything to them both.

Eren grins crookedly, almost disbelievingly as he raises his hand high in that familiar, casual wave, his brilliant eyes shining and wrinkling at the corners, and Marco feels like he’s flying.

Something glitters around Eren’s wrist, though, a bracelet or something, and when it suddenly yanks his hand back down, his whole body seems to follow the motion. He yelps, then casts a dirty glance to the side, and that’s when Marco sees the shorter man standing next to him.

Handcuffed to him.

That’s also about the point that Marco notices that Eren’s other arm is in a sling, heavily bandaged, and his stomach drops right through the floor.

Eren’s moving toward him, though, and he’s forcibly dragging the highly resistant other man along behind him, his enormous, charming grin flaring bright across his face as he powers through an alarmed crowd.

The force with which Eren barrels into Marco’s chest nearly knocks him over, but he’s immediately distracted by the way the guy handcuffed to Eren stares up at him, his stony grey eyes narrowed slightly. For lack of a better response, Marco stares right back at him, confused and intimidated. Is Eren in trouble? How much trouble? How badly is he hurt? Eren’s been back for all of ten seconds, and Marco’s already drowning in questions, momentarily stunned by all the chaos that Eren’s brought with him.

A long second passes before Eren stiffens slightly against Marco, like it’s just occurred to him that Marco hasn’t moved yet. He starts pulling away, but he doesn’t even make it an inch before Marco decides that he doesn’t give a fuck right now who this other dude is, because Eren’s _back,_ and he’d just stopped nuzzling into Marco’s collarbone, and Marco’s head is spinning.

“Sorry,” he blurts as he throws his arms around Eren’s shoulders and buries his face in his long, curly hair, breathing a long, shaky exhale over his ear. “Sorry,” he murmurs again, this one meant more for Eren as he pulls him closer, closer, as close as he can get. 

God, it feels so good, so _right_ to have Eren safely in his arms, to hold him tight and breathe him in again. He hadn’t realized just how badly his chest had been aching for Eren’s warmth until it’s slipping in sweet rays between Marco’s ribs, settling comfortably and comfortingly beneath his drumming heart like it had never left, until he’s standing once more dazzled by Eren’s boundless radiance. Somehow, it feels even better when Eren leans up and melts yet closer, even though it makes his unruly cowlicks tickle Marco’s nose. 

He fits himself flawlessly into Marco’s embrace with a low, trembling hum, and as their rabbit heartbeats settle in perfect time, the rest of the mute world slides out of their notice altogether.

After a long moment, Eren finds the breath to whisper, “H-hi.”

“Hi.” Marco shivers and curls further around Eren, nuzzling against his temple. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he replies, leaning into Marco’s affection for a moment before he blinks his pretty eyes up at him, so close now that the tips of their noses brush. “Yeah, I’m fucking _awesome.”_

Marco manages a weak little laugh then, pressing one trembling hand to Eren’s flushed cheek and breathing his name as he tilts his head slightly, lips parting in speechless invitation, and Eren’s eyes flutter shut when he arches up and gratefully closes the last lingering distance between them.

It’s _perfect._

It’s impossibly better than before, because this time Marco recovers in time to kiss Eren back, and the way their lips feel pressing sweetly together is enough to bring him to tears.

Sighing raggedly, Marco kisses Eren again, and a few more times, cradling him tightly to his chest and stroking his cheek. He can feel Eren leaning into him in return, melting into his embrace, and the sparks Eren breathes into him light anew the fire in Marco’s veins, leaving him dizzy, tingling and trembling and so, so, _so_ breathless.

“God,” Marco whispers in the miniscule space between kisses, his thumb trailing to the corner of Eren’s parted lips, “God, I missed you...”

Eren swallows quietly, then shifts up onto his toes to kiss him again, eagerly nodding his agreement even as he fills Marco’s lungs once more with a shivering exhale of his name, and another after that, the heat of his wavering breath serving to cement how _real_ this is.

Marco’s so lost in Eren that he doesn’t hear the crowds around him, nor the clinking of the chain on Eren’s wrist, nor the irate click of the other man’s teeth. Unfortunately, he has no choice but to notice the way Eren jostles when the dude yanks on their joined wrists.

Eren yelps again and throws a perturbed look over his shoulder, but he withers slightly under the weight of the man’s stern gaze.

“Levi, c’mon,” Eren grumbles, his lips pursed in annoyance.

Marco vaguely recognizes the name from the journals; Levi Ackerman is Eren’s embassy contact, the one responsible for fishing Eren out of a wide variety of fires over the years. He’s saved Eren’s life enough times that Marco already has some vague sense of respect for the man.

Until—“I don’t have time for this, Supertramp.”

Respect gone.

His arms tightening around Eren’s shoulders, Marco uses the good ten inches he has on Levi to tower over him. “That’s _not_ his name.” Eren tenses against Marco’s chest, his eyes flicking nervously between them, and even though Marco’s already starting to sweat, he holds Levi’s steely glare.

After an extremely awkward silence, Levi just rolls his eyes and pulls his phone out, and Eren deflates loudly, obviously relieved.

“Marco,” Eren murmurs, turning to look back up at the brunette. He nudges him with his chin until Marco looks down at him again, blinking widely. “It’s okay, Marco, that’s just how he is. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

“I do,” Levi interrupts, not even bothering to look away from the screen of his phone.

Marco purses his lips and frowns, but Eren gets his attention again fairly quickly. “Hey, so, um. This is kinda what I meant when I said picking me up was gonna be trouble for you.”

“Are you okay?” Marco asks again, resting his hands on Eren’s shoulders. He pulls back just enough to look him over, worried eyes hovering on the thick bandages covering most of Eren’s left bicep. “Your arm... are you under arrest?”

“Only kinda,” Eren mumbles, biting his lip and digging his toe into the tile beneath them. “Listen, I have to go fill out a shitload of paperwork before I can leave, it’s gonna be _super_ annoying for you...”

“Not nearly as annoying as it’s going to be for me,” Levi grumbles, dropping his phone back into his pocket. He’s already turning on his heel to leave, making to drag Eren behind him.

Eren manages to dig his heels in and look up at Marco for about a second, not even long enough to lean up for another kiss before he stumbles backward. “Shit, _Levi_ —sorry, Marco, I’m so sorry, I’ll explain later—can you grab my bags? They’re the—the backpacks, you remember?” Marco nods, his expression falling into something akin to a kicked puppy as he watches Eren shout through the thinning crowd. “Just—w-wait for me at Starbucks, I’ll be quick!”

And with that, Eren’s gone again, and Marco stands there helplessly for a second before he realizes that he’s standing in an _airport_ in _Seattle._ There must be ten Starbucks within throwing distance, at the very least.

Burying his face in his hands, Marco tries to sort through his rapidly-spinning emotions, cycling through giddy lovestruck to worried sick to overprotective bear and back again almost dizzyingly quickly.

\--

It turns out that there’s only one Starbucks that Marco can actually get to without going through security, so once he’s collected Eren’s dusty, well-worn bags, he makes his way over there to wait some more. 

Not that he minds waiting. After all, he waited seven months just to get to this point, and it was _so_ worth it.

No, it’s more that he waited for seven months, and it seems like the second Marco got Eren back, he was yanked away again by some tiny jerk with a badge. At least he got to kiss him.

As he sits relatively close to the Starbucks, Marco runs the pads of his fingers along his lips over and over, losing himself already in the memory of how incredible it had felt to kiss Eren _back._

That had been Marco’s biggest regret about their first kiss, honestly. He’d cursed himself a thousand times over the course of the last few months for being too shocked, too overwhelmed to actually kiss Eren back. He’d wondered if maybe that was why Eren had fled so quickly, too fast to be caught or even seen, if he’d been scared off by Marco’s stiffness, by his complete lack of response.

Even though he’d been stunned, the feeling of Eren kissing him had sustained him for months, and now that lackluster kiss pales horribly in comparison to the feeling of them kissing each other in equal measure.

Marco wants to do it more.

Possibly for hours on end, with nothing to interrupt them or pull them apart, nothing but time to kiss each other brainless. Time to hold hands and comb gentle fingers through each other’s hair, to hold each other as close as they can get for as long as they can handle it, to kiss until the warmth of the setting sun gives way to the milky light of the risen moon, until Eren’s smiling lips are flushed and swollen from Marco’s kisses, from his teeth and his tongue...

Appealing as it is, he cuts that train of thought off rather quickly.

Before Marco can lose his head in those kinds of daydreams, he wants to take Eren home first and clear the air between them as much as possible, as much as Eren will allow. He wants to find out what happened to him, whether or not he’s as okay as he says, what he needs, all that. Maybe feed him and let him sleep for a while, too, given that he’s probably gone far too long without either. 

More than anything, Marco wants to see Eren settle again, to watch his restlessness and his anxiety and his fear slowly dissipate from the space between them. He wants to breathe the air dyed sweet in Eren’s presence, no longer still and stale and choked with dust like ashes. He wants to see his apartment soaked in the colors of Eren’s sun, warm in the daylight and soft in the dark of night, so much more inviting brimming with the life that Eren lends it. He wants those slow evenings back, the ones filled with their low voices in equal measure as they talk about everything and nothing until the time trails away into sand and they can’t keep their eyes open any longer.

Once Eren’s settled again, comfortably spread out in Marco’s space, then they can talk more seriously. Once Marco’s sure that Eren feels safe with him.

He sighs and sips his sugary frozen drink as he waits, and he’s midway through planning out all the questions he’s going to ask, all the things he’s going to say when they’re alone when he realizes that no matter how solid, how structured his plans are, they’re just going to boil off into steam in the presence of Eren’s warmth.

Strangely, Marco finds himself entirely at peace with that.

He’ll roll with the surf when the tide comes in, just like he’s always ended up doing when Eren’s around. 

They’ll be fine.

\--

A few hours slip between his fingers, but Marco isn’t bothered by the steady passage of time. He keeps himself occupied by keeping a sharp eye out for Eren when he’s not messing with his phone, and when he finally catches a flash of disheveled hair and hopefully searching eyes, all thought of the time spent waiting falls away from his concern altogether.

He stands and slides his phone back into his pocket, waving his other hand in the air as he calls Eren’s name. When those tired eyes land on him, he can’t help the grin that spreads over his face, nor the way his heart starts beating a little faster in anticipation.

Eren smiles at him through the gaps in busy foot traffic, ending his search with what looks like a long sigh, and Marco watches him slowly run his now-free hand down his face before he starts cutting across to where Marco’s standing.

Somehow, he feels like Eren looks almost relieved.

“Hey, Marco,” Eren says once he’s made it through, biting his lip around a crooked smile. He’s undeniably exhausted, his long hair haphazardly tied into a wild little ponytail, bangs on end like he’d been running his hand through them, but his smile is still honest and sweet. Still Eren. “I’m so sorry about the wait, man, you didn’t have to sit around for so long.”

“I promised to pick you up, didn’t I?” Marco hums. He tilts his head with a warm smile of his own, eating up the faint blush that crosses Eren’s face before he murmurs, “It’s really no trouble at all, Eren.”

Eren shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck, mumbling something about angels before he steps a little closer, shyly inviting himself just barely into Marco’s space. Marco’s heart skips a good beat, but rather than pull Eren yet closer, he just reaches out and squeezes the brunette’s shoulder gently. His eyes fall back to the sling holding Eren’s arm loosely against his stomach, unable to keep the worry off his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Shifting his weight between his feet, Eren takes a deep breath, then says, “Thank you, Marco.”

Blinking widely, Marco raises his eyebrows and asks, “For what?”

For a long moment, Eren doesn’t answer. His eyes flick between Marco’s chest and the bustling atmosphere around them until they land on his bags, still carefully arranged in the seat beside Marco’s. “Um.” He swallows quietly, then shoots him a lopsided grin and says, “F-for grabbing those for me. I really appreciate it. The lost luggage thing is a huge pain in the ass.”

Marco raises his eyebrows further, but he lets Eren deflect anyway. He squeezes his shoulder again, and when he replies, he makes sure to address the gratitude beneath Eren’s light words. “Of course.” They stand awkwardly for a few seconds, Eren digging his toe into the tile beneath them, before Marco clears his throat. “Um, do you want coffee or anything?”

“God, no,” Eren laughs, the sound pretty and easy and so much more like himself. “I drank _so_ much coffee on the flight, I think I need to lay off for a few days. Or weeks.”

“Fair enough,” Marco chuckles. He pulls his hand away then, the tips of his fingers dragging over the folds of Eren’s t-shirt as he goes, and for the briefest moment, it seems like Eren leans after the touch. “So, um,” he continues, running his hand through his hair. “D’you wanna come back to my place? I-if you don’t have anything you need to take care of first, that is.”

“Nah, I’m free to go now,” Eren says, idly scratching behind his ear. “Not a moment too soon, either, I think I’ve had enough of airports to last a good, long while.”

“Mm, I don’t doubt that.”

“I’ll, uh.” Eren clears his throat and steps cautiously closer, glancing up at Marco again. “I’ll explain all that shit when we get there, yeah? Busted arm and all. I know it’s kind of a gross situation to just land in with no explanation...”

Humming thoughtfully, Marco hesitates for a tick longer before he reaches out and catches Eren’s hand, carefully watching his expression as he rubs his thumb across his rough knuckles, then slowly, gently twines their fingers. His heart skips a few beats at the adorably flustered look that crosses Eren’s face, but the way the brunette gratefully squeezes their laced fingers encourages him to take a step closer. He leans down just enough to press a soft kiss to Eren’s forehead, then straightens up and smiles soothingly as he nods. “If you’re up to it, sure.”

“I mean, I kinda owe you that much,” Eren mumbles, shifting guiltily.

“You don’t owe me anything, Eren,” Marco replies quietly. He presses his free hand to Eren’s cheek, rubbing his thumb gently over his flushed cheekbone. “I just wanna make sure you’re really okay.”

Eren stares widely, sucking on his lips for a moment before he shakes his head and lets out a long, shaky exhale. “Dunno what to do with you sometimes...”

“Oh?”

With a tiny nod, Eren slumps forward and rests his forehead against Marco’s chest, tension already slipping away from his tired shoulders. He doesn’t continue that line of thought, though, content instead to press his cheek against Marco’s shoulder as he leans into him, and Marco finds he isn’t bothered by it. He rests his chin lightly on Eren’s head and wraps his arm around his shoulders, holding him closer as Eren relaxes into his embrace once more.

“Sorry,” Eren mumbles after a few minutes like this, trying and failing to clear the exhaustion from his rough voice. “I must smell god-awful...”

Marco shakes his head, burying his face in Eren’s tangled hair to make sure he feels the motion. “You’re fine.” He rubs his cheek against Eren for a moment, somehow resisting the urge to purr contently. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, please.” Breathing a loud sigh, Eren tilts his head back and cracks his neck with a groan, reluctantly peeling away from Marco’s chest so he can reach for his bags instead. When Marco manages to move just a hair faster, scooping up the bags and shrugging them onto his own shoulders, he answers Eren’s raised eyebrows with a wide grin.

“You probably deserve a break from these, yeah?”

“They’re... heavy.”

Laughing softly, Marco gently ruffles Eren’s hair and replies, “All the more reason for me to get them. Seriously, it’s just out to the car. I’ll make it.”

Eren grumbles under his breath, fidgeting bashfully before he buries his face against Marco’s chest again, fumbling for his hand without looking. His smile widening, Marco twines their fingers again and ducks to kiss the top of his head, absolutely basking in the warmth of Eren’s touch as much as he can. 

The fact that Eren’s just as eager for physical contact is nothing short of a godsend, in Marco’s opinion. He could absolutely keep his hands to himself if Eren wasn’t into it, but given the way he’s nuzzling into Marco’s collarbone again and practically melting against him for more soft touches, Marco’s willing to bet that Eren’s just as starved for affection as he is.

“Okay, okay,” Eren says after a minute, reluctantly taking a step back. “Okay, I’m good.”

“You’re good?” Marco repeats teasingly. He bumps his hip against Eren’s playfully, grinning down at him as he nods again.

“Yep. For now.” Eren pauses to chew on his lip, peering up at Marco through his eyelashes. “Although I wouldn’t mind more of the same when we get back...?”

Sighing happily, Marco starts walking toward the exit, his free hand digging in his pocket for his keys as he leads the way. “That’s two of us, then.”

“Nice,” Eren laughs, licking his lips and glancing around before he shoots Marco an enormous grin and leers, “Plus, if it’s cool with you, I really wanna kiss you without all these people looking at us.”

Marco’s going to have a good bruise on his shin from walking straight into a row of metal seats, but it’s totally worth it for the way Eren howls with laughter, for the way the brunette’s still snorting sleepily halfway back to Marco’s apartment, for the promise of more sweet kisses yet to come.

\--

Marco _really_ needs to sit down.

He gapes at Eren, who stares right back, restlessly fidgeting with the loose hem of the shirt Marco had loaned him after his much-appreciated shower. 

“You got _shot?!”_

“W-well. I mean, _yes,_ ” Eren wheezes, watching Marco shakily lower himself onto the other end of the couch. “It’s not as bad as it sounds, though, I swear. They were just warning shots. Probably.” As he pulls his sleeve back up onto his shoulder, Eren carefully lifts his elbow so he can examine the two jagged lines of black suturing cutting across his upper arm. “I mean, they just grazed me, so I got really lucky.”

Groaning feebly, Marco scrubs his hands down his face and sinks further into the couch, his head still spinning with the idea of Eren getting _shot. Again._ Even more mind-blowing is how extremely chill Eren is about the whole thing.

“Honestly, the sling was kind of excessive,” Eren muses, tilting his head further to check out his stitches, gently poking at them and hissing at the sting. “Bullets didn’t even come close to the bone. The only time I was actually in danger was when one of the nurses tried to give me penicillin.”

“Eren...” Marco peers at him between his fingers. “You got caught in a _gunfight.”_

“Yeah, yeah.” Shrinking slightly, Eren goes back to picking at the hem of his shirt. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, man. That’s all. Wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. Anyway, that’s why Levi was there. I wasn’t under arrest so much as in totally unnecessary protective custody.” He laughs softly, tossing Marco a sheepish grin. “And hey, not having to pay for my flight here means I have more money saved up than I anticipated, so that’s good.”

Marco lets his hands fall back into his lap as he stares at Eren’s stitches, trying to sort out how he feels. Some part of him wants to feel guilty, but he squashes that part first, since excessive guilt has never done anything good for him at any point in his life, but particularly in regards to Eren. 

He scoots across the couch and leans closer, gently resting his hand on Eren’s elbow as he looks the two wounds over, trying not to feel queasy. “Does it hurt?”

“Kinda, yeah,” Eren hums, shifting his legs to make more room for Marco. “It’s far from the worst thing I’ve ever felt.”

Nodding slightly, Marco rubs his thumb lightly along Eren’s warm skin, keeping a careful distance from the stitches. “What do you need?”

Eren blinks rapidly at him, then tilts his head, obviously confused. “What?”

Marco shrugs, glancing up at the brunette. “Like... I dunno, do you _need_ anything? Ice, bandages? Tylenol?”

It takes a minute, but Eren’s expression softens into a small, crooked smile before he reaches up and gently trails his knuckles across Marco’s cheek. “Nah, man. Everything’s fine.” He pauses, then nervously chuckles, “Well, uh. I mean, if I start running a fever, I might need a ride to the hospital, but I doubt it’ll come to that.”

The blood literally drains from Marco’s face.

Eren laughs, though, loud and sweet as he squeezes Marco’s shoulder reassuringly, quick to stammer breathless comforts until the brunette looks less like he’s about to faint.

\--

As much as Eren tries to fight off his exhaustion, it’s obviously been a good long while since he slept soundly, and between the shower, a hot meal, and the feeling of Marco’s arm resting gently around his shoulders, he’s already more than half asleep before he can even finish recounting what he did between Seattle and Florida. He keeps lapsing into sleepy mumbling, leaned comfortably against Marco’s shoulder, and as adorable as it is, Marco would much rather put him to bed and start catching up tomorrow.

Speaking of beds, though.

“Hey, Eren,” Marco hums, lightly combing his fingers through the unruly ends of Eren’s now-dry hair. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

“’M awake,” Eren murmurs, shifting to curl further into Marco’s neck.

“Uh-huh.” Sighing warmly, Marco gently nudges Eren until he’s sitting upright, something he’s obviously rather disgruntled by. 

“Mmph,” he rasps, wavering slightly before digging the heel of his hand into his eye with an impressive yawn. “You goin’ to bed?”

“In a bit, yeah, probably.” Marco bites his lip and hesitates again, waiting until Eren’s blinking blearily at him again. “You, uh. W-where do you wanna sleep?”

Some of the haze clears from Eren’s eyes as he registers Marco’s question, frowning in thought for a moment. “Um. Couch is still good.”

“Oh.” Marco sucks on his lips, forcing himself not to look disappointed. “Okay, cool.” He turns to face Eren properly and scratches the back of his head, only mildly distracted by how _adorable_ Eren looks all ruffled and sleepy, before he decides that maybe he should wait until Eren’s at least mostly conscious to discuss other possible sleeping arrangements. “Well, I’m gonna leave you to it, then,” he continues finally, pulling the blanket off the back of the couch. “Is this one okay, or?”

“’S perfect,” Eren sighs, his lips quirked in a little smile as he fists his hand lightly in the fabric. “Missed this thing, man.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Marco hums, succumbing easily to the storms of butterflies swirling around his stomach. “D’you need anything else?”

Eren shakes his head and stretches lazily before he gives Marco another, shier smile. “Thanks again, Marco.”

“Of course.” Marco shifts slightly, getting ready to stand, but he hesitates before he does and glances back at Eren. “H-hey, Eren?”

“Mhm?”

“Can...” Rubbing his hands across his thighs, Marco peers at Eren for a moment longer, then asks, “C-can I kiss you again?”

Eren raises his eyebrows, blinking away yet more of the sleepy fuzz. “Huh?”

“I mean, uh.” Marco swallows and rubs the back of his neck, watching Eren flush. “Is it okay if I kiss you? It’s okay if it’s not.”

“W-why wouldn’t it be?”

Marco shrugs, then shoots him a nervous smile. “That’s for you to decide.”

Fidgeting slightly, Eren blushes darker and drops his gaze, and just as Marco’s about to tell him not to worry about it, he blurts, _“Y-yes._ Please.”

“O-oh.” He nods, scooting a little closer to Eren, then murmurs, “If you don’t want to, that’s okay, Eren.”

“I want to, though,” Eren mumbles, peeking up at Marco through his eyelashes. “I really do.”

“O-okay.” Marco moves closer, gently pressing his hand to the brunette’s warm cheek and tilting his face up. Eren’s _so_ damn cute, his tongue wetting his lips as he shifts toward him, and Marco can’t help but smile warmly and rub his thumb across Eren’s cheek as he dips to nuzzle him affectionately. 

When Eren leans up further, his lips parting slightly as his pretty eyes flutter closed, Marco tilts his head and kisses him softly, breathing a content sigh at the sweet brush of their lips. He presses gently forward, more than aware of Eren parting his lips further, but rather than take him up on his unspoken invitation, Marco pulls back slightly, their lips parting with a tiny sound. Eren makes a small, questioning noise, so Marco kisses him again, shorter and lighter this time before he pulls away entirely.

“Thank you, Eren,” he murmurs, letting his hand slip away from Eren’s face as he stands.

“O-oh.”

“I have work tomorrow,” Marco hums, sliding his hands into his pockets, “But you should feel free to stay here and catch up on your sleep, okay?”

“Oh,” Eren repeats, flushed bright all the way to the tips of his ears. 

Marco smiles cheerfully and tilts his head, slowly edging back toward the bedroom. “Good night, Eren. Just shout if you need anything.”

“Oh.” Shaking himself out of it, Eren runs his hand through his hair and nods quickly. “Yeah, yeah, uh. Th-thanks, Marco.”

After he’s closed the door, Marco flops back onto his bed without turning the light on, entirely unable to wipe the enormous grin off his face. A few minutes pass before the light from the living room goes out too, and once he’s left in complete, satisfying darkness, Marco slams a pillow over his own face and muffles a series of squeaky, giggly noises he would never admit to in the light of day. Possibly while kicking his feet.

\--

Surprisingly, Eren’s still dead asleep when Marco wakes up for work the next morning. He’s ensconced in a rather fortified blanket burrito on the couch, nothing but wild bedhead poking up over the edge, soft snores lilting through the cool morning air, and Marco’s so happy he might pass out.

He tries to go about his morning routine quietly, but as soon as the coffeemaker starts whirring noisily, the pile of blankets emits a long series of confused peeps. Dangerously close to passing out now.

Crossing his arms on the back of the couch, Marco smiles down at the shifting blob for a moment, perhaps enjoying Eren’s struggle with his cocoon a little more than he should. Eventually, he has mercy and tugs the edge of the blanket down off Eren’s face, and the brunette peers up at him through his bangs with a perturbed groan.

“Hrngh.”

“Good morning,” Marco laughs softly, gently brushing Eren’s hair off of his face. Eren makes another disgruntled sound, managing to get his arms out of the blanket so he can stretch noisily, hissing at the tug of his stitches. 

“Two minutes,” Eren rumbles, turning to bury his face in the back of the couch with a huff, clearly avoiding the dim light streaming in through the window.

“You don’t have to get up, I just wanted to let you know that I’m leaving for work soon.” Leaning his chin in his palm, Marco smiles warmly as he tucks a few messy curls behind Eren’s ear, then tugs lightly on his earlobe. “Didn’t want you to wonder where I went when you wake up later.” Eren’s eyes flutter open slightly, enough to blink blearily once or twice before he turns and squints up at Marco, whose smile just widens. 

As sleepy as he is, Eren seems to be struggling with his words, so Marco playfully pokes his nose before he straightens up and goes about his business.

By the time Marco’s dressed, his coffee’s cool enough to drink, and Eren’s sitting up on the couch, wreathed in a literal nest of blankets. He’s also got some genuinely impressive bedhead going on. The whole image is more adorable than Marco’s poor heart can take at this hour, but he manages to reel it in some so he doesn’t just fall over. 

“Seriously, Eren,” Marco hums, bringing his mug with him when he comes to sit on the coffee table beside Eren. The brunette blinks at him, looking more confused than ever, so he continues, “Stay here and rest, yeah? At least for today. I mean, you obviously don’t have to if you don’t want to, but the offer is more than open.”

Eren breathes a long sigh, then nods slightly, reaching up to rub his eyes lazily as he flops back along the couch. “If it’s okay with you,” he mumbles roughly. He laces his hands over his stomach and looks up at Marco again, quirking a lopsided smile at him. “Guess I’m more beat than I thought.”

“I’ll admit, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quite this out of it,” Marco laughs. 

He can still feel the weight of Eren’s tired gaze on him as he crosses his legs and sips his coffee, directing his attention to his phone to keep an eye on the time, but the feeling doesn’t bother him. It’s just as warm as Eren always is, although somehow laced with the temptation to lie back down and sleep the day away, the way looking at a sleeping cat tempts one to slumber.

“Alright,” Marco says after a few quiet minutes, pausing to finish his coffee before he stands again and smiles down at Eren. “I’m gonna get going. Make yourself at home, okay?”

“Okay...”

Marco sighs contently, watching Eren slowly wiggle the blankets back up his chest for just a moment longer, once more briefly incapacitated by the rare sight that is sleepy Eren. He shakes himself out of it, though, and as he walks around the sofa toward the kitchen, he drags his fingers along the upholstery behind Eren’s head, then across the back of the couch, lingering for as long as he feels he can get away with it.

Just before he turns away, a warm, rough hand finds his, lightly covering the very ends of his trailing fingers. He blinks down at them, immediately pausing, but before he can ask, Eren pulls his hand back and wheezes, “S-sorry.”

“Eren?”

No reply comes, so Marco stretches over to put his empty cup on the kitchen table before he leans down on the back of the couch again, peering curiously at Eren, who seems to have disappeared into his blanket.

“Everything okay?”

“Y-yeah, yeah, uh,” Eren starts, shifting awkwardly beneath the blanket pile. “I just, um. N-never mind.”

“Eren...” Marco reaches down and gently rests his hand where he estimates Eren’s shoulder to be. “Is something wrong?”

“No, Marco, honestly.” Eren fidgets a little more, then emerges quickly from the blanket and kneels in front of Marco, looking bashful and disheveled and so goddamn cute that Marco feels kind of dizzy. Before he can figure out what’s going on, Eren’s hands are _so_ warm on his cheeks, but that’s nothing on the soothing heat of Eren’s lips pressed lightly to his, gentle and sweet and _wonderful._

He kisses him softly, slowly, then once more, stroking his thumbs along Marco’s cheeks, and when he pulls away, he rests his forehead against Marco’s and mumbles, “Haveagoodday.”

Marco blinks widely, but Eren’s stubbornly looking away, and when Marco’s still choking on his tongue a long minute later, Eren drops onto the couch and yanks the blanket back over his head.

“E-Eren...” Marco manages breathlessly, too full of butterflies to respond right away. He’s already grinning, though, his chest flooding with familiar warmth as he reaches down and tugs the blanket off Eren’s face again before he leans far enough over the back of the couch that his feet leave the ground.

He’s ten minutes late to work, but he’s still beaming like the sun itself when he collapses into his chair, and the cinnamon sparks of Eren’s shy, flustered kisses linger on his lips well into the day. 

\--

“Jesus Christ,” Jean groans, leaning away from the lovestruck puddle that is Marco melting across his desk. “I thought you were moony when you were pining, this is some next level shit.”

“Sorry, Jean.” Breathing a dreamy sigh, Marco steals a few of Jean’s french fries, then sits up again. “I’m just... really glad he’s back.” Once Jean’s retaliated by stealing some of his chips, Marco works on finishing his own lunch, extremely grateful to have the privacy of Jean’s office. He’d been about ready to explode all day, what with all the excessive, built-up joy and nowhere to vent it.

“Seriously, dude. You’re, like, leaking glitter and puppies. I’m honestly surprised the contact sugar rush hasn’t put me into a diabetic coma.”

“Are you diabetic?” Marco asks. Jean nods, taking a vicious bite of his own messy sandwich. “I didn’t know that.”

Rather than respond, Jean just shrugs, taking his time chewing and swallowing before he shoots Marco a stern eyebrow. “So, are you concerned about the whole ‘boyfriend got shot’ thing, or?”

Marco huffs an insulted sigh. “Of _course,_ Jean, jeez. I don’t really know what to do about it, though, and he’s said several times that he’s fine.” Sniffing slightly, Marco purses his lips and grumbles, “I’m not allowed to be happy _and_ worried?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Jean laughs soothingly, reaching across his desk to pat Marco’s hand. “You’re allowed to be happy, your boy came home. I’m happy for you.”

Before he can stifle it, the enormous grin spreads across Marco’s face again, and he bites his lip while Jean groans dramatically. He’s worried, of course he is, but he still can’t help the giddy exuberance that floods his body every time he thinks about the sweet kisses they’d shared that morning. 

“But about the getting shot thing,” he says finally, once he’s relived that rose-tinted memory a few more times, “What d’you think I should do?”

“I dunno,” Jean manages around an impressive mouthful of food. “Google it?”

Raising an eyebrow, Marco pulls his phone out and rubs his thumb over the dark screen. “Google _what,_ exactly?”

Jean rolls his eyes and swallows. “You wanna take care of him, right?” Marco nods. “Try ‘gunshot wound care,’ dummy.”

Marco does, and the overwhelming regret is instantaneous. As is the nausea. He slams his phone down on Jean’s desk, face paling considerably, and while the dizziness settles, he focuses on taking deep breaths.

“Oh my god, you big baby, gimme that.”

For the rest of their shared lunch break, Jean scrolls through extremely graphic medical advice on the internet, somehow managing to casually finish his food at the same time. 

\--

In addition to learning that Jean apparently has an iron-clad stomach, all Marco really gleans from their impromptu research is that aside from washing them and keeping an eye on them, they basically just need to leave the stitches alone. He’s somewhat relieved by the fact. Hopefully Eren isn’t the type to harass his injuries while they heal.

Even if there’s nothing medical for him to do, though, Marco still wants to do _something,_ so on his way home from work, he stops at the store to buy a mountain of sweet things.

Before he can overthink it or talk himself out of it, he swings by the hardware store too, where the guy that runs the key-cutting machine has just come back from his break.

\--

“So, uh,” Marco mumbles, sheepishly scratching the back of his head as Eren pokes curiously through the pile of candy on the kitchen counter, “I didn’t really know what you like best, so I kinda just bought everything.”

“I see that,” Eren chuckles. He shoots Marco an amused smile, his bright eyes almost shimmering for a brief moment. Tucking his bangs behind his ears, Eren pulls out a bag of peanut butter cups and sticks his tongue out playfully, immediately cracking it open and fishing a few out.

While Marco stuffs the rest of the snacks into the cupboard, Eren hops up on the counter next to him and offers him a peanut butter cup, which he gratefully accepts.

“What’s the occasion, anyway?” Eren asks quietly. Marco blinks up at the brunette, raising his eyebrows in question. “I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s not Halloween.”

“Oh, um.” Shrugging idly, Marco looks back down at his candy and finishes unwrapping it before he mumbles, “I dunno, it was kind of an impulse thing. Whenever I have a hard day, I like sweet things, so.” Marco trails off and shrugs again, popping the chocolate into his mouth as he stares pointedly at Eren’s bare knee, resisting the urge to fiddle with the hem of the brunette’s loose shorts.

Eren eats another peanut butter cup with a hum, kicking his feet lazily. “It’s sweet of you,” he murmurs finally, scooting a little closer. Marco nods vaguely and rubs the back of his neck, still flushed warm, but before he can wonder if maybe he went overboard, Eren soothes his knuckles over Marco’s stubbly cheek and breathes, “Thank you, Marco.”

His blush darkening further, Marco peers up at Eren and nods again, trying not to lose himself in the tender warmth behind those pretty green eyes. He hovers for a moment, then cautiously leans closer, and when Eren’s smile widens beautifully, Marco’s ecstatic heart flutters against his ribs. 

Gently nudging their noses together, Eren tilts his head slightly and brushes his lips against Marco’s, lingering perfectly in his space with another few soft kisses as his thumb slips aimlessly along the line of Marco’s jaw. Breathing a shivery little sigh, Marco lets his eyes slide closed as he presses closer. His hand finds Eren’s waist with a light squeeze, the heat of his skin flooding easily through the thin fabric of his borrowed shirt. 

Before he can get too invested, Marco pulls back with another small kiss, then rubs his nose affectionately against Eren’s cheek, unabashedly nuzzling him. Eren leans his head aside easily, exposing the dark, sweet-smelling skin of his neck, another of his unspoken invitations. Rather than accept it just yet, Marco pulls away again, smiling as he gives Eren’s waist a quick, reassuring squeeze.

“L-let’s, um,” Marco mumbles, momentarily distracted by the way Eren’s tongue sneaks out to wet his lips. “Let’s sit down, yeah? I wanna hear the end of that story you were telling me yesterday, the Greyhound horror montage.”

“Oh, from when I fell asleep?” Eren laughs and hops down off the counter, then lets Marco lead him over to the couch. Just like yesterday, Eren sits close enough beside him that he can rest comfortably against his side, his legs curled beneath him. Marco hums warmly and wraps his arm around Eren’s shoulders again, careful not to brush his stitches with his wandering fingers, leaning over to drag soft kisses up his temple and into his unkempt hair.

As he’s pressing more light kisses through Eren’s curls, Marco breathes a low, content sigh in their wake, letting his eyes slide closed as he takes in Eren’s endless warmth everywhere they’re touching. Once he’s settled against him again, happily leaning into Marco’s affection, Eren reaches over and trails the tips of his fingers idly over Marco’s knee with a hum.

It’s almost surreal, being this close to Eren. After so much time spent carefully keeping his distance, after even more time spent not seeing him or hearing from him, being allowed and allowing himself to hold him like this feels _incredible._ Even better is the way Eren seems to meet his touches in kind, as if he already knows exactly how to anticipate Marco’s affection.

Eren’s only been back for a day, maybe less, and yet it almost doesn’t feel like he’s been gone. That spell he casts apparently hasn’t lost its edge.

As usual, time apart doesn’t seem to have put a gap between them, nor left any awkwardness in the air between them. Marco falls into him the same way he had before he’d left, but the difference now is that he doesn’t have to calculate the distance between their hands or their lips, nor the time spent just looking at him.

Now that he thinks about it, it’s absolutely surreal.

“How was work?” Eren asks after a while, pulling Marco out of his hazy thoughts. He makes no move to dislodge Marco, but he eases up slightly regardless, shifting instead to rest his cheek on Eren’s head.

“Same old,” he replies, choosing not to admit to his explosive glee just yet. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Mhm.” Eren takes to doodling little spirals over Marco’s knee with the tip of his finger. The sensation is surprisingly hard to ignore. “Like a rock, it’s pretty much all I did all day.”

“Good.” Leaning back, Marco takes the opportunity to smile widely at Eren, who’s glancing up at him through his eyelashes. “Rest is good for you, ‘specially when you’re healing.”

Eren snorts at that, a crooked grin spreading across his face. “They’re just _bullet wounds,_ ” he teases, playfully jostling Marco before laughing, “Seriously, I’m totally fine, you nerd.”

“Sorry, I’m a worrier,” Marco replies, tugging on one of Eren’s loose cowlicks.

“Don’t worry yourself to death,” Eren hums, squeezing Marco’s knee gently before he turns toward him slightly. He leans up and brushes the tip of his nose against Marco’s, and when he doesn’t pull away, Eren smiles and kisses him again, his hand curving over the nape of Marco’s neck.

This time, their lips linger for much longer than before, pressing more warmly, more firmly together as Eren runs his thumb idly over Marco’s skin. Sighing slowly, Marco leans into it, his arm tightening around the brunette’s shoulders as his other hand comes to rest gently on Eren’s forearm with an encouraging squeeze.

If the angle is awkward for him, Eren doesn’t let on, instead tilting into the kiss more and parting his lips invitingly, always inviting. Their lips slot together perfectly, sending a shiver down Marco’s spine, and as he exhales shakily, Eren takes the initiative and slips his tongue against the part of Marco’s lips.

It’s far from the first time they’ve kissed, but the tongue thing is definitely new, so Marco’s breath hitches slightly at that enticing sensation. He swears he feels Eren smile against him, but that just serves to make Marco dizzier as he slides his own tongue out against Eren’s, tangling them slowly, and as they deepen the kiss, Marco buries one hand in Eren’s hair in an attempt to keep himself from floating away altogether.

Kissing Eren is something else entirely. It feels different every time he does it, but every single time, he’s surprised by how easily he’s swept away by it. 

This is all so new, the lazy intensity burning through their shared breath, and it’s so good, so sweet that he can’t help but chase it, curling his tongue eagerly between Eren’s lips with a breathy sound. Eren’s almost overwhelming in how beautifully he fits himself against Marco, how perfectly he keeps their unhurried rhythm of lips and tongues and warm, steady breath, giving and taking in equal measure so naturally that it’s astounding.

As the hand tangled in Eren’s hair slides slowly around the back of his head, Eren shivers slightly, his lips parting on a soft gasp, so Marco hums and sucks the brunette’s flushed lower lip between his for a moment, and when Eren arches toward him encouragingly, dizzyingly, Marco nibbles his lip gently before he lets it slide back out so he can kiss him again.

For a moment, Eren seems stunned, his breath caught in his chest, so Marco pulls back, his hazy eyes fluttering open. Sighing raggedly, Eren blinks up at him as he sucks on his lip, almost as if he’s chasing the feeling of Marco’s teeth.

“Y-you okay?” Marco asks breathlessly, lightly scratching his short nails over the base of Eren’s skull.

The only answer he gets is a nod, and before he can find a way to respond, Eren’s moving.

Too quickly to catch, Eren climbs right into Marco’s lap with a shaky hum, straddling him firmly before taking Marco’s cheeks in his hands and kissing him again, his tongue flicking between Marco’s lips with a different kind of energy entirely. He kisses him almost urgently, melting against his chest, and a soft moan escapes Marco before he can swallow it down. Resting his hands high on Eren’s back, Marco drags his palms across the brunette’s narrow shoulders as they kiss, and the heat now flaring from Eren’s lips leaves Marco entirely brainless.

His hands fist slightly in Eren’s shirt as he kisses him deeply, dizzily, wildfire spreading all through him, all around him, consuming him even as it encourages him, and the sharp little sounds Eren breathes into his lungs snap like hot sparks on his tongue. 

Just as Eren shifts on his lap, pressing immeasurably closer and slotting their hips together, he tangles his hands in Marco’s hair and fucking _rolls_ his hips against him, slow and firm and so, _so_ powerful in its persuasion, and all Marco can do is whimper into him, weakly clutching his shoulders for support.

He’s so hard it hurts. There’s no way Eren doesn’t know it, either.

Grinning against Marco’s lips, Eren breathes a low, tempting laugh in response, but he’s apparently gotten tired of Marco holding onto his shirt, because he sits up straight just long enough to rip it off and throw it aside, and Marco can’t breathe anymore.

Eren’s warm, steady hands find his again, and he sits back enough that all Marco can do is watch as he bites his own lip and gently guides Marco’s palms to his flat stomach, encouraging him, even _pleading_ with Marco to touch him as the corners of his lips curve into this fucking _unfair_ little smirk.

Marco’s brain is fried. It’s dead. There’s smoke coming out of his ears. His mouth is dry and he can’t breathe and he’s touching Eren’s hot, _hot_ skin with his weak hands, and the world spins even faster when he realizes that Eren’s achingly hard in his loose shorts, pitching the world’s most fucking attractive tent, and. And yet.

And yet, in some deep, respectable area of his intact mind, Marco knows this is way, _way_ too far.

He swore he wouldn’t do this, not like this. Not without making sure Eren’s okay with it. Not at the risk of hurting him or making him feel used or indebted. Shit, they’ve barely even _spoken_ to each other since yesterday. Eren’s been back for one goddamn day, and he’s been unconscious for most of it. Last Marco checked, Eren was still afraid of him, and knowing that he got this carried away without giving him a good reason not to be, without even _trying_ to tell him that he cares about him...

As much as he wants this, and even though Eren had initiated it, he still feels like he’s taking advantage of Eren.

Guilt crystallizes like ice in Marco’s chest.

“Wh-what are we doing?” he rasps, his voice cracked and shaking. He blinks up at Eren, neither moving his hands nor pulling them away, not even when Eren tilts his head, obviously confused.

“Uh,” Eren replies, his own hands sliding to rest on Marco’s wrists. “I, um.” The bright blush painting Eren’s cheeks spreads to his ears before his gaze drops to their laps again. “H-hooking up?”

Marco can’t find a good response to that, so he just kind of stares for a long minute, watching Eren slowly wither in his lap. “E-Eren...”

“D-did you not—sorry, uh,” Eren stammers, yanking his hands away from Marco’s before awkwardly crossing his arms over his chest, looking everywhere but at him. “Sorry, um. I just—”

“ _Eren,_ ” Marco presses, shifting his hands to the brunette’s shoulders, careful of his stitches. After a moment, Eren glances at him again, his gaze nervous. Marco sighs slowly and leans back into the couch, running a hand down his face. “Sorry, uh,” he mumbles, and despite the abrupt change in atmosphere, Eren relaxes in Marco’s lap, letting his hands fall into his lap while he waits for Marco to talk to him.

Clearing his throat slightly, Marco blinks up at him again and asks, “Is... is this what you want?”

Eren tilts his head in question. “What, hooking up with you?” Marco nods. “I mean, yeah...” Rubbing the back of his neck, Eren considers Marco for a moment longer before continues, “I like you a lot, Marco. Like, a _lot_ a lot. I missed you like crazy while I was gone...” Biting his lip lightly, Eren carefully reaches for one of Marco’s hands, squeezing it gently before he twines their fingers, his other hand coming to rest on the brunette’s shoulder as he scoots further into his lap again. 

“I missed you too,” Marco mumbles, letting his free hand rest on Eren’s waist.

“Mm, that’s another point in your favor,” Eren hums, smiling warmly. He bites his lip and moves to rest his palm on Marco’s cheek. “No one really _misses_ me like you do. It’s hard to describe. Everything else you do, too...” Breathing a soft sigh, Eren combs gentle fingers through Marco’s hair before he nods. “Yeah, I’d like to sleep with you.”

Marco sucks on his lips and stares for a moment, choking on his tongue until Eren raises his eyebrows in obvious concern. “So...” he manages, “You don’t, like... feel like you have to? With me?”

Eren hums again, his eyes wandering for a moment before he shrugs lightly. “Nope.”

“Oh.”

“Like, I’m used to that kind of pressure, trust me,” Eren snorts, running a hand through his own hair. “But I don’t get that from you. I know I can trust you to take things at my pace.”

Marco nods vaguely. “And your pace is okay with... that?”

“Hmm...” Squeezing Marco’s hand reassuringly, Eren ponders again before he responds. “Yeah, I think so. I certainly wouldn’t regret it.”

“O-oh.” Marco stares down at their laps, once again entirely at a loss. 

Eren tilts his head, then softly asks, “Do _you_ want this?”

“Y-yes,” Marco wheezes quickly, unable to hide the way he shifts nervously. “Yes, I do, I just.” Swallowing quietly, Marco stares up at Eren for a moment and tries to put words to the weird, confusing feelings tying his tongue in knots. Luckily, Eren’s patient, resting his hand on Marco’s shoulder as he soothes his thumb along their laced fingers. “It’s just,” Marco tries again, his eyes falling to their hands. “You just got back yesterday. We haven’t... talked or anything. I missed you so much while you were gone, you know? And _god,_ kissing you is—it’s _so_ nice,” he stammers, flushing slightly. Eren chuckles warmly, sliding his hand around to gently squeeze the nape of Marco’s neck. Breathing a soft sigh, Marco leans into the touch and closes his eyes, then mumbles, “But the other stuff, it just... it feels like it’s so fast, and I was—I was worried that you felt pressured.”

“And now that you know I don’t?”

Marco blinks up at Eren, still struggling to come to terms with that fact. “I-I don’t know.”

Humming softly, Eren pauses to mull things over for a moment, idly scratching his nails through Marco’s hair as his eyes wander again. “You know, Marco,” he starts, “You spent so much time worrying about me...” Marco nods, and Eren raises his eyebrows with a small, crooked smile. “Did you ever stop to think about yourself?”

“What d’you mean?”

Eren’s smile widens, and he presses his palm against Marco’s cheek and asks, “Are _you_ ready for this?”

Marco opens his mouth to respond, but for a second, nothing comes out. 

Then, with a somewhat uncomfortable click, he gets it.

“N-no,” he rasps finally. “No, I’m not.”

Sighing softly, Eren nods understandingly, then leans forward to brush his lips gently against Marco’s forehead. “That’s okay with me.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Marco mumbles, squeezing their laced fingers. “I’m making this about me, and—”

“Marco,” Eren breathes warmly, shifting to nuzzle against Marco’s temple with a low hum as he slides his arm the rest of the way around his neck, holding him gently. “It’s okay, sweetheart.” 

Swallowing heavily, Marco wraps both of his arms around Eren’s waist and tugs him closer so he can bury his face in his shoulder, drinking in all the reassurance Eren has for him. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles again. “It’s selfish of me.”

“It is not,” Eren scolds as he leans his cheek against Marco’s head, slinging his arms comfortably over his shoulders. “Would it be selfish of me to tell you that I’m not ready?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why is it any different when it’s the other way around?” 

Marco doesn’t really have a good answer for that, so he just buries his face further into the crook of Eren’s neck. Eren sighs quietly and goes back to lightly combing his fingers through Marco’s hair, waiting until he’s relaxed somewhat to ask, “So what _do_ you want?”

For a minute, Marco just turns that question over in his mind. He hadn’t really thought about it, not the way Eren’s asking him to. 

“I want you,” he whispers finally, holding Eren a little tighter. “I want all of you, though. Just... to be with you.” He takes a deep breath, then gently shifts Eren back so he can look at him, reaching up to rest his hands on the brunette’s warm cheeks. “I-If you’re okay with it, I want everything you’re willing to share with me, Eren. I wanna take this slow, show you how much you mean to me.” 

Eren’s eyes widen at that, flicking quickly between Marco’s. “M-Marco...”

“A-and later, if we’re both okay with it, then I’d, um.” Marco chokes slightly, but he manages to keep eye contact as he wheezes, “I’d like to m-make love to you. But... not just yet.” Dragging his thumbs lightly over Eren’s cheeks, Marco bites his lip and murmurs, “If it’s something you want too, then I wanna make something out of this.”

Laughing quietly, Eren drops his gaze again and rubs the back of his own neck for a moment, then mumbles, “Kinda makes it sound like you wanna _date_ me or something.”

Marco’s eyebrows shoot up. “Eren.”

“Y-yeah?”

“I _do_ wanna date you.” Eren’s eyes widen as his face flushes dark, his mouth falling open slightly. He chokes on his words for a moment before Marco stammers, “O-only if you wanna date me, though.”

“Y-you—” Eren’s eyes narrow, and he tilts his head in confusion. “You... like me that much?”

Nodding firmly so as to leave no room for doubt, Marco says, “I do. I really, really do.” He pauses then, withering slightly under Eren’s scrutiny. “I hope that doesn’t sound selfish... a-and you don’t _owe_ me this, okay? It’s just if you’re interested in that.”

“Marco...” Eren lets his eyes slide closed, curling in on himself slightly, so Marco cautiously pulls his hands away from his face. “Listen, uh.”

“You don’t have to answer right now,” Marco blurts. “Or at all. I just, uh. I don’t really _do_ casual, and—” 

He’s cut off before his babbling can gain traction by Eren’s warm, trembling hand pressed over his lips. 

Sighing shakily, Eren blinks up at him again, his lip caught between his teeth. Marco raises his eyebrows in question, but he keeps quiet, letting Eren get himself together. “I, um.” He pauses to take another deep breath, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment, his lips quivering slightly as he does. Unsure what to do, Marco rests his hands on Eren’s waist again, squeezing reassuringly. 

Eren struggles with his words, clearly unused to this, to having a say, to being allowed to say, “I want that. I want that with you.” Marco’s eyes widen, his chest swelling with giddy, lovestruck joy, but he lets Eren continue, hand still over his mouth to keep him from interrupting. “I’ve—I haven’t _dated_ anyone since, like, high school. I’ve done nothing but casual. So, uh. I’m kinda nervous, I’m not gonna lie to you.”

He pauses then, swallowing heavily before he leans his forehead against Marco’s and closes his eyes. “I trust you, though. I trust you more than I’ve trusted anyone in a long time. And... I’ve—I’ve never _come back_ for someone before.” Sniffling quietly, Eren squeezes his eyes tighter shut, but he lets Marco pull him closer, silently soothing him with his warm, accepting embrace. “I’ve never hoped so damn hard that someone would ask me to come back to them, a-and I’ve never tried so hard to get back to the States before.” His breath hitches, his brow furrowing, but he huffs softly before he continues, “But I trusted you to want me back, and you didn’t let me down. S-so, yeah.” Finally, _finally_ Eren blinks up at Marco, his vivid eyes brimming with tears. “I-I want to try and make something of this.”

Marco’s entirely sure he could die happy right now. He’d rather not, but still. 

His own eyes brimming with overwhelmed tears, he nods quickly, Eren’s hand still warm across his lips. He tugs him close then, wrapping his arms around him again and nuzzling their noses together, trying to show with the affectionate contact how grateful he is, how happy, how goddamn over the moon he is.

It must work, because Eren breathes a thick, wet little laugh against him, then pulls his hand away and presses their lips together instead, his arms wrapping around Marco’s neck again and holding him just as close.

They kiss until they’re dizzy and breathless, so different from earlier. New again, sweetly overwhelming and absolutely perfect in its intimacy, long, loving kisses punctuated with dazed laughs, with quietly-whispered affection, and by the time they think to part, they’re both flushed from the warmth of their shared breath.

\--

“This might be a little weird,” Marco says much later, sprawled lazily across the couch with Eren resting warm on his chest. His breath ruffles the unruly curls tickling his nose until Eren turns to look at him, his chin digging lightly into his ribs, eyebrows raised in question. “But I, um. I got you something.”

Eren blinks widely at him, then sits upright again, attentively perched in his lap. Digging in his pocket for a moment, Marco fidgets slightly before he grabs one of Eren’s hands and presses something into his palm. “Y-you, uh. You don’t have to take them, but they’re yours if you want them.”

Eren stares for a moment, then glances down at the two shiny brass keys now resting in his open palm.

“It’s, uh.” Marco clears his throat, shifting nervously before he says, “One’s for the building door, one’s for my apartment. I kinda forgot which is which, sorry.” For a long moment, Eren continues staring, and Marco tenses in the thick silence. “L-like I said, if you don’t want them, it’s cool. I j-just, uh. I thought it’d be more convenient for you? That way you don’t have to wait for me all the time or if you want to go out, then you can, so you’re not trapped in here all day—”

“Marco,” Eren breathes, once again effectively silencing the brunette’s increasingly-frantic babbling.

“Y-yes.”

Swallowing heavily, Eren closes his fist over the keys before he blinks up at Marco, and his wildfire eyes are already brimming with tears before he asks, “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am,” Marco replies, gently resting one hand on Eren’s knee. “I trust you, Eren.”

Eren bites his lip then, and just before the tears spill over, he flattens himself against Marco’s chest again and rests his shaking hands against his cheeks, pressing sweet, flustered kisses all along Marco’s face between choked, honest gratitude, and it doesn’t take long at all for Marco to wrap his arms around Eren’s waist in return and hold him just as tightly so he can return those kisses in droves. 

He doesn’t let up, either, not until Eren’s wiping the tears off his flushed cheeks and laughing again, sputtering and snorting and catching Marco’s lips wherever he finds the opportunity.


End file.
